


Remembrance: Part II

by Blue_Sunshine



Series: The Desert Storm [8]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Graphic Description, Healers, Jedi Temple (Star Wars), Master & Padawan Relationship(s), The Dark Side of the Force, Time Travel, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-02-04 20:30:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 33,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18611977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Sunshine/pseuds/Blue_Sunshine
Summary: The past is a dangerous place. It is the memories of the things that once were which made us who we are, and can unmake us.





	1. Chapter 1

Essja Chias is attending a seminar at the Coruscant Institute of Inter-Species Medical Practice when he receives the alert, and at first, he has no idea what it’s for. He’s never received a critical alert before, as he is a Padawan still, and has no dedicated patients. And it’s not the Temple crisis alert.

And then it dawns on him.

“By _zeltrossi_ …”He sucks in a breath, using a familiar refrain of his masters, and earns several startled and curious looks.

“Es?” Doctor Hop’li’ili pauses his demonstration, antenna lifting.

“I have – I have to go.” Essja says hurriedly. “I have – a patient emergency.”

“By all means.”

He still hasn’t quieted the increasingly shrill alarm on his comm-link, but at his declaration the other twelve attending this particular demonstration move on instinct, and one hands him his datapads while another helps him remove his apron and gloves without tripping up. Someone clasps his robe over his shoulder and Essja is moving without entirely being aware of himself, running out.

“Wait!” Someone grabs his arm, yanking him back, and diverts him to the Institute’s dedicated shuttle bay.

“I don’t have a license!” Essja protests, seeing the markings on the craft he was being dragged towards.

“I do.” They retort.

Essja has had his basic piloting courses, as all Jedi do. He’s a passable pilot, and the next ten minutes convince him he’ll never, ever fly again.

His stomach is clenched with anxiety and roiling with nausea by the time he staggers out onto the front steps of the Temple, and he barely remembers to thank the iktochi doctor before sprinting inside.

The shrieking alert on his comm-link warns his fellow Jedi before he bowls them over, and they hastily divert out of his way. Essja doesn’t know what’s happened, but he can feel the shock and fear trickling through the temple, and his senses shiver around a source of pulsing pain and darkness.

There is a blood trail leading into the Halls of Healing, small servo droids busily trying to clean it up. It isn’t quite dried yet.

It’s oddly quiet, through the doors, but that’s because Essja knows the trauma bays are heavily shielded. No sound gets out.

“Bay Osk-Two, Essja!” Padawan Leeoli shouts at him from behind the desk of the central hub.

Essja clips to a halt just outside, shedding his robe and satchel and taking three deep, gulping breathes. He presses his palm to the scanner, and it admits him.

Essja counts seconds as the lights flash and the sonic scrubbers send vibrations over his skin, sterilizing him. He dons a crisply clean frock and cap, scrubs and sterilizes his hands again for good measure, and steps through the second threshold.

He sees the droid hanging an IV and Healer G’Naakt uncapping a hypospray.

“Stop!” Essja blurts. “Back away from my patient!”

“He’s in shock and his vitals are dropping.” Healer G’Naakt barks back at him, not hesitating in the slightest. Essja lunges, throwing himself between the biotable and the other Healer.

“And you’re about to poison him.” Essja says sharply, hardly noticing the bruise he’s just given his hip with that graceless maneuver. “His system won’t be able to compensate. You’re more likely to stop his heart than stabilize him. This is _my_ patient. _Listen_ to me.”

“ _He is failing_.” The medical droid drones.

“Your patient.” Healer G’Naakt nods bluntly, handing over the hypospray. Essja takes it in steady hands, turns, and looks down at the mess made of Ben Naasade.

“What have we got?” He asks levelly. “And what do we know?”

~*~

The sky is shadowed, the air full of a murky mist. Bioluminscent plants glow eerily, and something slithers along the ground that he cannot see, just at the edge of his hearing.

Obi-Wan doesn’t understand, placing his feet carefully, stepping over splayed limbs and tricky roots.

The ground is littered with bodies. Men in white armor, painted blue, or painted a familiar shade of soft orange, almost yellow. Some of them are detailed differently, but by and large they are all the same.

Obi-Wan doesn’t understand.

Blaster-burns sear the white duraplast armor, the armor that looks near Mandalorian. He looks from one body to the other, and all he knows is that they killed each other.

He doesn’t understand.

 _Why_?

“Cody, I told you not to follow me.” Obi-Wan hears, and jerks his head up, where the mist swirls and reveals his master, standing with a man whose face Obi-Wan can’t quite see, whose armor is too alike that of the men on the ground. “You didn’t deserve to see this.”

“With all due respect, General.” Cody replies. “None of us do. These where my men. Our men.”

The mans voice is strangely familiar, before it falters, then breaks.

“What are we doing, general? What are we? – He made us kill our own brothers!” The man cracks, disciplined posture breaking under grief.

“Master?” Obi-Wan calls, and Master Ben turns, the other man fading like a ghost.

“Master?” Ben repeats, expression severe, gaze confused. He looks different, half-armored, hair cropped short, every line of his body somehow sharper. He studies Obi-Wan like he doesn’t know the boys face, and Obi-Wan shivers.

“Where are we?” Obi-Wan asks, dread pooling cold in his gut.

Master Ben cuts a glance around, grey-hued eyes shadowed with haunt, and then cuts back to Obi-Wan with slow, aching recognition.

“Somewhere we should not be.” Master Ben says softly, as if afraid to wake the dead that surround them. “You should go, padawan.”

“I’m not leaving you here.” Obi-Wan declares stubbornly.

The look in Ben Naasade’s eyes shifts to something like _pity_ , and they wake up.

~*~

Ben comes aware to excruciating, screaming pain and is yet at the same time strangely dissociated from it.

“No. _No_.” Padawan Chias snaps at him. “You should not be waking up!”

Ben can taste blood in his mouth, and the syrupy sweet of sedatives, and struggles to open his eyes. He can sense the bright light above him, but he can’t tell where he is.

“ _S-singer_.” Ben pleads, as the disassociation starts to fade, his mind bleeding back into his body, his body bleeding pain like a writhing, vicious animal. He moans, and tries to move, and can’t, discovering restrains, and panics. _Please, please, take it away._

Beru had been his singer once, gripping his hand and crooning lullabies into his ear while her nameless doctor debrided dead flesh from an infected wound in his leg. He remembers choking against the leather bit he was biting down on, and he remembers the white hot heat, but in that moment, salvation had been the brandy numbing his tongue, and a weathered palm against his own, and the water-like quality of her voice, and the spice-and-herb scent of her hair, brushing the edge of his face. In the deep desert, and in the dark places where Ar-Amu watched over her people, Singers were the only pain relief slaves got. And sometimes, sand-ravaged wanderers too.

“Heart rate’s going up, blood pressure’s going down!” Someone snaps.

“We have a bleed.” Another voice remarks crisply.

“We have more than a bleed!” Padawan Chias retorts, and Ben can feel a strange sort of tug, low in his belly, that makes bile creep up his throat. He shivers. Or he thinks he does. He’s cold.

“Go back under for a while longer, Master Naasade.” Padawan Chias murmurs, leaning low over his face. Ben still can’t make his eyes open, and he loses the struggle to try as a prickling absence creeps across his body, and it all fades out again.

“Is he even worth saving?” He hears, and aches, mentally scrabbling at the world as it slides back. “I heard he-“

“ _Leave_!” Padawan Chias orders, voice unforgiving.


	2. Chapter 2

Obi-Wan sleeps fitfully on the transport. His dreams are strange; disjointed and dreadful, and sometimes, in the moment of waking, he can feel his masters pain.

Padawan Unduli tries to help him settle himself, having been tasked to escort him home with their borrowed transport, but the meditation only seems to make it worse. He draws up his shields instead, burying pain and confusion under a storm of a thousand other feelings until all of them are meaningless white noise that he can step away from.

It helps, but it makes him restless. On that front, Luminara can assist him. They spar, and she doesn’t reprimand him when he hacks angrily at her defenses. She merely keeps shifting like wind against the buffet of his wildfire, both of them feeding into each other as they press back and forth across the narrow hold, cargo and equipment shoved to the walls.

“You’d be well suited to Niman, Padawan Kenobi.” She compliments him. “You’re a highly adaptable opponent, though I can tell why you favor Soresu, the Perseverence Form.” She nods her head.

“I don’t.” Obi-Wan replies bluntly, though he doesn’t mean to seem harsh or unappreciative. “I don’t favor anything. I don’t have a specialty. My master…”

White noise, like the ever-streaming traffic lines of Coruscant. Step back. Breath. Let it pass you by.

“He hasn’t found what suits me yet. I’m even still practicing Shii Cho.” Obi-Wan confesses, regaining his center.

Luminara seems taken aback by that, at a loss as to what to say. Obi-Wan stares at her, and her true blue eyes, for a long minute, the color soothing in its strict purity. She doesn’t blink.

“We should clean up.” Obi-Wan finally says, feeling absent within himself. “I’ll brew some tea.”

“I would like that.” Luminara nods, expression gentle. “Thank you.”

Every hour of their journey takes far too long.

Obi-Wan bolts the moment they land, earning a shout from the master who was no doubt waiting for him, but Obi-Wan doesn’t _care_. He makes his way to the halls of healing with indecorous haste, his vision slightly blurry by the time he sees the ornately patterned doors, and he rushes through only to be caught fast.

“Let me-“

“Padawan Kenobi.” Master Windu calls sharply, hands firm on the teenling’s shoulders, and Obi-Wan jerks, and stops fighting the master. He looks up, eyes wide, and Master Windu sighs gravely.

“You need to come with me, Padawan Kenobi.” Master Windu tells him, turning him around.

“I _need_ to see my master!” Obi-Wan protests. “That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Because he might –might….”Obi-Wan trails off helplessly, feeling cold all over.

Master Windu looks down at him, and like Master Vumoyo, he looks so very _sorry_.

“No, padawan.” He says tiredly. “I’m afraid that is not why you are here.”

~*~

“Are you certain you’d not rather have a laser cutter, Shmi?” Shaak Ti inquires, watching apprehensively as her padawan learner chipped red stone away from fragile, sparkling crystal with a chisel, a pick, and a small hammer.

“I am perfectly capable, _Maratt_.” Shmi looks up from her work, sharp gaze alight with good humor. “And some things are meant to be done by hand.”

“Now that is wisdom.” Baze Malbus, the Guardian counterpart to Chirrut’s Shaman, says approvingly, voice surprisingly smooth and low for a man of his build. Down the long table from Shmi, he is similarly attending to a long splint of wood, scraping it smooth to a polish.

“I understand well the virtues of patience and toil.” Shaak Ti smiles back at the younger woman. “But I also know that you have passed this test already, padawan. I only want to reassure you that you need not stand on ceremony when your options allow for something more…convenient.”

Now Shmi’s humor moves from her eyes to her face, stretching her slash of a mouth into something sweeter and freer as she smiles. “Am I inconveniencing you?” Shmi teases.

“Never.” Shaak Ti replies proudly, Anakin tugging on one of her lekku. She glances down at him, lifting a chastising brow, and he mutters a short apology and dashes off, clambering up onto the bench, to stare at Malbus. The ease with which he patiently ignores the prodding attention tells Shaak that someone in his life uses a very similar tactic.

He lifts his gaze to Anakin’s only once, offers a steady look of acknowledgement, and returns to his work. Anakin pouts, and then yelps in delight when Chirrut strides up behind him and sweeps him off the bench and into the catch of his arms. “We do not bother Guardians while they are _focused_ , little sunshine, any more than you should bother your mother while she meditates.”

“From the mouth of Chirrut Imwe?” Malbus lifts a brow, not even looking up, though that disbelieving expression is clearly directed at the other man.

“Hush you.” Chirrut tuts, and carries Anakin back over to the women among them. “Is there anything you need?” He inquires, inspecting Shmi’s work with care, reaching across the run his fingers through the red dust left on the table. He retracts his hand, smiling kindly at Shmi, and draws a red stripe down Anakin’s nose.

“Hey!” The boy protests, wriggling.

“Not for now.” Shmi smiles back, lifting a brow at what he does to her son.

“As you are.” Chirrut tips his head, and turns to Shaak. “Will you be staying to construct her lightsaber, or returning to your temple?” He inquires.

“I’d like to stay, Shaak.” Shmi says softly, looking back up. “I feel…more settled, here.”

“The desert is in your bones.” Chirrut comments. “But it should not be all of you, Shmi Skywalker. What you need may be here, and you are welcome to pilfer our stores and the markets for it, but it can be built wherever you go.”

He sounds almost…sad, when he says that.

Like he knows they’ll be leaving.

~*~

Mace keeps one hands on the boys wiry shoulder as he guides him through the Temple, partially to keep him from running back into the Halls of Healing, and partially because he hopes, in some way, that Obi-Wan finds it to be a comfort.

Mace has never quite reconciled himself to dealing with both of them, never quite been able to adjust to the idea that _this_ boy grows up into _that_ man. Obi-Wan Kenobi was emotional at times, unfortunately self-conscious, and given to a temper, but he was also diligent, compassionate, and brimming with promise.

Ben Naasade was…mercurial and impassive, powerful and unyielding and fundamentally broken in ways no one knew how to handle.

The Jedi are not strangers to war, often finding themselves in the midst of others battles, but what did it take, he wonders bitterly, to twist the shape of someone so deeply?

Worry and frustration bleed off into the Force, but the boy is doing a remarkable job of letting go of what he was feeling, and Mace was cautiously impressed with what he felt of the teenling’s shields; shifting, obscuring layers. Not impenetrable, but Mace had the uncomfortable feeling that those weaknesses he felt were traps, and that he might get past the first guard, and find himself somewhere he does not want to be.

 _What did he teach you?_ Mace wonders, a chill running down his spine.

Obi-Wan is hardly paying attention to where Mace takes him, until they enter the chamber for the Council of Reconciliation, and the boys head snaps up in shock.

And _anger_.

“Padawan Kenobi.” Yaddle, as the Head of the Reconciliation Council, greets him gently. “Sorry, we are, for your struggles. But investigate, we must, the actions of your master. Deeply troubling, his recent actions. Concerned, we are, that more to them, there might be.”

Mace prepares for an outburst, as Obi-Wan sucks in a sharp breath. But the boy holds it, and releases it slowly, and the anger he felt dissipates into the Force. The masters look on in approval.

Mace studies the boy, and steels himself.

Obi-Wan lets go of his anger, but that only means that when he looks up, there is nothing but cold hard certainty behind the cool look of defiance he offers them.

Painfully, this is where Mace recognizes that he and his master are the exact same force of nature.


	3. Chapter 3

“Padawan Kenobi, this obstinance does you no good.” Master Tiin sighs, from where the councilors look down upon the padawan in question.

“I want to see my master.” Obi-Wan repeats, careful to keep mulishness from his voice, and the biting anxiety he feels from his face.

 _Sometimes all strength is, Obi-Wan_ , his master had told him once, _is one’s ability to_ pretend _to be strong_.

“And should you cooperate, allow that, this council may.” Master Yaddle replies, as patient now as she was twenty minutes ago.

Obi-Wan wants to protest the mere suggestion that they only _may_ allow him.

“I will not answer questions that you might interpret as evidence against my master unless you tell me what you’re accusing him of.” Obi-Wan protests instead. “You cannot make me provide testimony against my own lineage.”

Obi-Wan studied Padawan Rights extensively in an effort to sooth his own fears that someone might take him away from Master Ben. He is very glad of it now.

“Padawan Kenobi, we are not asking you to testify against your master.” Master Koon rumbles softly. “We merely wish to understand what happened the other day.”

“But you will not tell me what _happened_ the other day.” Obi-Wan replies crisply.

“Perhaps we should.” Master Mundi suggests. “Perhaps he should see it for himself.”

“ _No_.” Master Windu protests, stepping up behind Obi-Wan. “He is _fourteen_. He does not deserve to carry his master’s burden.”

Obi-Wan doesn’t quite understand what Master Windu means by that, but when he turns to look at the man, Master Windu is not addressing the whole council, but Master Yaddle alone, as if there is more to the meaning of his words than everyone else in the room understands.

“Agree with you, Master Windu, I do.” Yaddle nods her heads, and Obi-Wan reminds himself not to grind his jaw, not to clench his fists. To remain still. He doesn’t have to be calm – he doesn’t know if he can be, right now, just… _still_. As unreadable as calm water.

The way his master does.

“Describe your training, could you, Padawan Kenobi? Teach you, what does your master?”

It seems like an innocuous question, but then, Obi-Wan had been duped like that before. He’d had his share of fellow initiates, asking him what seemed like such simple things and laughing behind his back as they twisted his answers into knots.

“I request to see my master.” Obi-Wan repeats himself.

“Padawan Kenobi.” Master Mundi sighs. “Once we are finished here you will have the chance-“

“Will I?” Obi-Wan demands, and then bites his cheek, scolding himself sharply. He takes a breath to calm himself. “What if he dies?” Obi-Wan asks sharply, voice cracking. “You _may_ give me the _chance_ to see him, once we are _done_ here, but what if he dies?”

“Padawan Kenobi, we do not wish to cause you suffering, but our concerns are dire, and what you have to tell us-“

“I’m sorry Master Koon, but whatever I can tell you will be pointless if he doesn’t survive. You won’t tell me what happened, but I know my master is – is….”Obi-Wan bites his lip to stop it from trembling, and tries to step away from the twisting, clinging, scared thing inside him that makes it so hard to breathe.

“Our healers are doing their very best.” Master Windu promises, stepping up and laying a hand on Obi-Wans shoulder.

“If you won’t let me see him… tell me _why_.” Obi-Wan pleads with the councilor, who looks back at him with pity. Master Windu lifts his gaze to Master Yaddle, who closes her eyes, expression grave.

“Your master was involved in the Fall of two other Jedi, and his own…his own methods have called his loyalty into question.” Master Windu admits, hand still on Obi-Wan’s shoulder.

“You’re accusing him of being a Darksider.” Obi-Wan can barely shape the words. His chest feels tight, like he can’t – can’t breathe. Obi-Wan turns on the council, the hard edge to their gaze more palpable, the height and shadow created by them more sinister. “And you want to know if that’s what he was training _me_ to be.”

“Was he?” Master Mundi inquires, earning a few sharp looks from his fellows that  Obi-Wan couldn’t care about, staring at the cerean master in disbelief and choking despair.

“All I have ever wanted…”Obi-Wan murmurs, fighting tears. “Is to be a Jedi.” He sucks in a sharp breath, ears ringing. “And the only thing my master has ever done…” Another breathe, stuttering and wet. “…is _help_ me.”

Obi-Wan swears to himself that he will not cry in front of the council, as he swore to himself back when they were sending him to Bandomeer. It is a different council, but it feels exactly the same. Obi-Wan slips away from the hand on his shoulder and leaves, keeping his steps steady and his head held high.

 _Your back is a target_ , _Jed’ika_. Jango Fett had told him, though at the time, Obi-Wan was less concerned about his words and more about the vibro-blade in his hands. _If you walk away from someone, make sure they know you aren’t afraid to show it them_.

 _What if I am_?

 _Then if they strike, be ready for them_.

“Padawan Kenobi, you are not dismissed. We are not finished here!” Master Tiin reprimands deeply.

_What if they’re stronger than I am?_

_Then don’t turn your back_.

“Kenobi!” Windu snaps, striding after him. Obi-Wan pauses, and turns to the master of vapaad, certain his face is blotchy and his eyes red-rimmed. He throws a short glare over the council, and bows with the barest of courtesies. “You can’t walk away from the council just because you are upset. I understand this is not easy for you, and that there is much here beyond your understanding, but we have to attend to our duty with due diligence. This cannot be ignored.”

 _What if I have to_?

 _Well, Jed’ika_ , Jango had snorted, both amused and speculatively off-put. _Then learn to take a beating_.

“I am not ignoring you, Master Windu.” Obi-Wan says, his voice scratchy but surprisingly level. “I am not ignoring any of this. I will answer this councils questions, if I am compelled to. _After_ I have seen my master. _After_ it has been determined whether he will live or die.”

“They’re compelling you _now_.” Windu says warningly.

“And I have the right to refuse to give testimony against my own lineage.” Obi-Wan replies, voice blunt. “And I am refusing to do so at this time.”

“Padawan, this act of defiance will not work out in your favor.” Windu says quietly, gaze flickering over his shoulder. Obi-Wan recognizes that in his own way, Master Windu is trying to protect him. But inherent in that act is a silent accusation – assumption, even – that his master is guilty, has done something that Obi-Wan needs to be protected from. “If your master has done nothing wrong, then what you have to say can be used to absolve him.”

Obi-Wan drops his gaze, struggling with that, with his own words a minute. “Master Windu,” He says, not quite able to look back up, his ability to pretend to be strong crumbling a little. “I don’t doubt that my master has done something wrong. You wouldn’t be _afraid_ if he hadn’t already done something…probably horrible.” Obi-Wan has seen enough of his master’s nightmares, and his saber-work, and his flinch-and-fight reactions to understand that his master has the capacity for violence which most Jedi can’t even measure up to. But Ben Naasade’s capacity for violence pales deeply in comparison with his heart. “What I doubt is your reasoning as to _why_.”

“Does it matter?” Windu retorts, surprised at that response.

“Why someone does something horrible?” Obi-Wan scowls back up at the master, affronted by how callous that question was. “Of course it matters.”

“Then ends never justify the means.” Windu says sharply.

“But the means may be the best of several bad choices.” The red-headed boy protests vehemently, thinking not only of his master, but of _Mand’alor_ Fett, having killed Jedi to save his own life; Of the _Khagan’s_ of Kalee, waging a genocide to free and protect their people.

“Then don’t choose.” The councilor snaps, dark eyes narrowing.

“That’s not a neutral act.” Obi-Wan accuses him, glaring defiantly up at him. “And not always an option.” Wasn’t that, after all, the dilemma facing Duke Kryze right now, his chances _not_ to act rapidly running out and having damned him once already.

Master Mace Windu glares down at him, and half a year ago, a month ago, maybe so little as a week ago, that alone would have cowed Obi-Wan into compliance. But Master Windu’s disapproval doesn’t scare him as much as the idea that his Master might die. Doesn’t matter as much as that. “You truly believe that your master isn’t dark?” He demands, something in his voice telling Obi-Wan that the harun kal, for all he has never liked his master, _wants_ to believe it.

“I truly believe,” Obi-Wan says carefully, “that whatever my master is or is not, that he is a Jedi.”

Master Windu stares down at him, and sighs tiredly. “Go.” He permits, turning to grimace at an impatient, unhappy council.

Obi-Wan stares back at him, feeling that the councilor conceded, but did not actually believe him.

Obi-Wan leaves.


	4. Chapter 4

“Master Windu!” Master Tiin scolds, as the doors seal behind the padawan’s exit.

“I guarantee you his stubbornness would outlast yours.” Windu retorts wearily, rubbing a hand over his face.

“Would you?” Master Mundi grouses, the cerean displaying an unusual amount of frustration. All of them were.

Windu shoots him a ruffled look. “We have all met his master, have we not?”

There is an odd sound that erupts from Master Koon, who abruptly lifts his hands to his mask and flicks his fingers to be dismissed. Yaddle bestows upon him a look that is wise and never fooled, no matter how well esteemed to colleague generally appeared to be.

“You bore witness to the incident, Master Windu.” Master Koon speaks, saving himself from other chastisements. “Though we have all seen the footage.”

The masters all grimace, some more affected than others by the brutality of the display.

“And I do not retract my statement that his response was Dark. I felt it, masters.” Mace says, looking troubled. “But his circumstances and his mental state were…” He sighs, shaking his head. “We need answers, masters. And in our haste for them, I believe we have just erred deeply.”

“Darkness, from _him_ , you are certain?” Mater Yaddle inquires.

“He near rended Master Krell limb from limb.” Master Mundi protests, gripping the rail before his seat. “Surely the darkness is apparent!”

“To be honest, I could not swear to it. The whole corridor felt dark.” Master Windu says, with a brooding shiver at the recollection.

“You’re doubting now.” Master Koon comments, leaning forward in contemplation, hands clasped before his mask.

“I want to doubt.” Master Windu confesses, glad for the moment that Master Ti was off-world and absent from this meeting. She did not know of Master Naasade’s true history, and her absence made things…easier. “I don’t want to believe that we could ever lose Obi-Wan Kenobi so profoundly.”

“The boy has potential for darkness.” Master Tiin remarks. “Is that not why he was meant for the service corps?”

“He was meant for Qui-Gon Jinn.” Windu retorts bluntly.

“He was meant,” Master Yaddle corrects quietly. “ for the Jedi.”

“War changes people.” Master Mundi says, as they chew on the thought. “A war with the Sith…why have we not made him tell us more? Surely he could come up with something to ive us that would not so destabilize the value of the information he holds!”

“Make him?” Windu lifts a brow, unimpressed. “Again, my previous argument. We have all _met_ Master Naasade.”

“So crude are we, that a blunt instrument he need be to make his point clear?” Master Yaddle inquires, threading her hands together, wizened gaze landing on each of them in turn, narrowing shrewdly on Master Koon’s seeming impassiveness and Master Windu’s inevitable subtle shift of discomfort. He does not like being studied, Master Windu. “Flaunt the flaws in our strength, he has. Defeat him, in fairness, has any of us?” She inquires. “Lay the proof of our own end at our feet, he bid his padawan to do, and done, it was. Act on this, have we? One truth, he gave us – return, the Sith will – and believe him, we have not. Doubt him, we do, study him, we do, find him wanting, we do. _Wanting_ , is he? Wanting, he finds _us_. Decide, we must.”

“Decide what, Master Yaddle?”

The old woman scowls, green wrinkles deepening. “Darkness, he has brought with him. Yes, true. Dark, perhaps he is.” Her ears droop. “Deal with him, we must. But what he represents, also. From the future, he is. Ready to face it, are we? Decide. _Decide_.” She repeats.

“We have always faced darkness, and we have always prevailed.” Master Tinn declares, in absolutely certainty.

“No.” Master Windu confesses. “We are not.”

“We are not.” Master Koon agrees.

“Then act, we must.” Yaddle croaks. “The duty of this council, to deal with darkness, it is. Threatened, we are. Change, this Order must.”

“We need a full vote of the council to command such change, Master Yaddle.” Mater Mundi reminds her, his unease plain in the Force.

“Recall Master Ti, we shall.”

“This is unprecedented. This is…” Master Tiin shakes his head, the iktochi master floundering.

“If wrong, we are, only stronger, we will have made ourselves.” Yaddle says. “So bad, will that be?”

“If it were that simple we would have acted when he first arrived.” Master Tiin replies grimly. “There is a cost to what we do. If we demand change, our people will want to know why, and if we tell them, they will be afraid. Or are we to lie to them?”

“Cry from the towers, I did not intend.” Yaddle grouses. “Hasty, your thoughts. Time, we have. A young man, Master Naasade is not. A boy, Obi-Wan Kenobi still is. Take care, we will. Mind your own fear, you should.”

“And regarding Master Ti?” Master Koon prompts.

“Tell her, we will not. Her perspective, outside what we know – valuable, that will be.” Yaddle answers him sagely, though there is a spark in her eyes. A master of shadows rarely needs to be told what they ought to learn. They find out their own way. “See it as we cannot, she will.”

“As you will, Master Yaddle.” Plo Koon dips his head, and Master Windu – well, he looks like he needs to go lie down somewhere quiet for a while.

~*~

“You should rest.” Master Hiella says softly, and Essja jerks upright, head having been braced on one palm, entire body slowly tipping to one side.

“I’m – I’m resting.” He mutters, blinking a few times to shake the fog of half-sleep away.

“In a bed, Padawan.” His master reiterates, amused and concerned. “Sitting there, waiting for him to crash again, is not rest.”

“But he might crash again.” Essja points out, to use her own argument against her.

“And you will be there.” She replies, undaunted. “But you will be of more use to him if you are not strung out exhausted. Take a cot at the Healer’s station. You’ll be less than a minute away. You can feed his vital display directly into your headboard if you like.”

Essja takes a few deep breathes, staring up at his master’s violet eyes, queerly bright against her pale red skin and dark hair. As a youngling, he’d found it so funny that his master was red and he was blue. Standing side by side they actually tended to look a little ridiculous, like a younglings color painting. He sighs, slumping forward a little, folding his face into his palms. She ruffles his hair, or attempts to – it’s too well slicked down to really move.

“Why am I a trauma specialist?” He groans.

“Because you picked me for a master, little one?” She muses. “Because you can give more than others can? Because you chose the path of a Healer-Knight, and this is what a Healer-Knight does?”

She crouched down in front of him and pries his hands away from his face.

“Because you’re brave and more than a little spiteful about the things that are taken away from people?”

Essja snorts, and she smiles, in the way that crinkles her eyes and nose, making her look like the young woman she once must have been.

“People never guess that Healers are spiteful little hobgoblins.” He mutters reproachfully.

“Well, what else drives us to wrench back from the Force that which is being taken? We’re greedy and spiteful and we care too damn much.” She says. “It’s a gift.”

“I don’t know if I can save him.” Essja blurts, feeling the doubt gnawing on his bones. “How am I supposed to face Obi-Wan if I can’t save his master? Did you give me a trial doomed to fail?”

Pain shadows her face and she huffs out a slow breath. She stares at the floor for a minute, and Essja curls against the churning in his gut. He didn’t want to have to tell Obi-Wan that he failed to save his master, didn’t want to look the younger boy in the eyes and know that the pain in them was because Essja was not enough.

Essja had been busy with his exams when his master assumed control of the other padawans training – his absence had likely been why she assumed the other boys training, she never did well without something to always be working on – but Obi-Wan had sought him out nonetheless, for advice, for perspective, when he didn’t quite understand something Master Ni Hiella tried to explain, even just for someone to complain with, as a pseudo-sibling padawan. Obi-Wan had curious difficulties in his studies, but in some respects, he was remarkably insightful, and Essja enjoyed his company more than he thought he would, given the difference in their ages. The boy was nearly a decade younger, after all, but the odd hour together had helped Essja through the stress of his exams, and Obi-Wan through the stress of his month-long medical training gauntlet.

Essja didn’t want this to blacken everything between them, didn’t want to fail, didn’t want the dread singing through his nerves to resolve itself into despair because he fears he is not going to be able to save Master Naasade.

Ni Hiella looks back up at him. “I gave you a trial I could see plainly that anyone else _would_ fail.” She says bluntly, and Essja blinks, feeling a searing flash of hurt, before the twist in her words registers. Essja huffs, because the faith she has in him is as painful as it is relieving, spreading through his chest like a hot coal, searing and vibrant, demanding and powerful.

“You’re an awful person.” Essja tells his master, a smile breaking across his mouth. “The worst.”

Ni Hiella rolls her eyes, standing up. “You’re hardly a sugar-plum, my dear padawan. Go get some rest.” She tugs him out of the chair, and he glances worriedly through the observation window at his unconscious patient, but all the read-outs remain the same. They aren’t particularly good, but for the moment, Master Naasade isn’t dying.

Essja chews his lip, worrying about how long the current drug cocktail is going to work before something tips the balance and he has to recalculate it all over again.

“Essja – _bed_.” Ni Hiella reprimands, pushing him away from the display and the observation window.

“Right.” He mutters, moving his feet. “Right.”

“Essja?” Master Hiella flinches, and Essja closes his eyes briefly before turning.

Obi-Wan pauses a few paces away, face pale and eyes red-rimmed, radiating anxiety in the Force. “Can I see him?”


	5. Chapter 5

Obi-Wan almost turns and runs back the other way, when the Healer’s wince at his appearance. He bites the inside of his cheek. Padawan Chias looks exhausted. From Obi-Wan understands, his master was in surgery for nearly half a cycle, stabilized, crashed, and went into surgery again, all overseen by Padawan Chias, for which Obi-Wan is devastatingly grateful.

“I’ll take care of this.” Master Hiella murmurs, giving Padawan Chias a prompting push, and Obi-Wan glances between them uncertainly.

“I…” Essja hesitates, soft gold eyes still locked on Obi-Wan’s face. Obi-Wan offers him a weak smile, knowing his master’s chances were better if Obi-Wan didn’t distract his primary Healer. Essja nods, relief flooding his face, and moves off. Obi-Wan has to force himself to drag his gaze away from the younger healer and back to Ni Hiella.

“Come with me.” Hiella gestures quietly, and Obi-Wan is pulled along in her wake, though the closer they get to his master, the worse Obi-Wan feels, dread running up and down his limbs, anxiety clogging his throat. He tries to swallow, and it hurts to do so. He rubs his chest, trying to press back against the cold pressure there, and Ni Hiella’s hand lands on his shoulder, making him jump.

“He’s stable for now.” She says quietly, guiding him past the observation window, and Obi-Wan is torn between looking and not looking. “I’m going to allow you to see him on the strict belief that he might be bolstered by your presence.” She warns.

“I understand.” Obi-Wan whispers, nodding.

“You need to be very quiet, padawan, and keep calm.” She says. “I’ve already taught you how empathy can work against us when we’re weak.”

Obi-Wan nods. Jedi were particularly susceptible to psychic harm when their physical bodies were endangered, when healing took up so much of their energy and they unconsciously reached out for more, leaving themselves open in the Force. Turbulent or violent emotions could harm them as severely as a physical blow, in such a state.

She keeps her hand on his shoulder, holding him back from entering the sterilizer until he has taken a minute to draw in deep breathes, forcing his muscles to relax, and drawing up his mental shields, letting go of the miasma of emotional wreckage drifting around him in the Force.

 _Don’t bury these things._ His master had instructed, one meditation lesson after another _. Let them go. Give them up as you walk further and further into your own mind. They aren’t lost. You’ll find them again. You just don’t need them now. Do you understand?_

Obi-Wan hadn’t, at first. It had taken lesson upon lesson to get there. His master had told him to visualize walking in a vast desert, stripping off his emotional concerns as if they were physical objects, setting them down as he trudged over the sand, leaving a path behind to follow back out of the dunes.

It wasn’t so much the metaphor Obi-Wan struggled with as the visualization itself, and the concept of making his feelings into tangible things that could be put down. The landscape Obi-Wan finally managed to build in his head was not a desert, but a lake, and he left those things behind him on the shore, and waded into the water until he was just…floating, buoyed by the Force, and nothing but the clear expanse of the galaxy above him. He centered himself there, and opened his eyes.

Ni Hiella lets him go.

~*~

The quiet thrum if machinery and gentle pulses of various vital signs is almost soothing – designed to be that way, at least. The room is kept a half-light, and two medical droids are on stand-by in the corner, pale blue painted metal almost blending in to the walls. The room is sterile, smells sterile, _taste’s_ sterile.

Obi-Wan swallows tightly and walks around the bed. His master’s hair is a stark shock of color, compared to everything else, a vibrant red-gold cinnamon color, several shades lighter than Obi-Wan’s, and threaded with golden-blonde.

 _We’re red-heads, Obi-Wan_ , his master had smiled once, when Obi-Wan had relayed some comment of Bant’s regarding her curiosity over their similar shades of hair. To be fair, any hair at all was a curiosity to the Mon Calamar. _We’re vastly outnumbered among any species. We ought to stick together, oughtn’t we_?

Obi-Wan had turned away so he could roll his eyes at the comment, though he did find himself smiling. It was a silly and spurious comment, when Obi-Wan had still been hoping to learn just _why_ his master chose him.

Aside from his hair, everything about his master seems… _less_. Awake, aware, his master carried intensity like the promise of a storm. Lying on the bed, his master’s pallor was waxy and pale to the point of almost seeming bruised, especially around the eyes. One red sear marks a cheek, but everything else is dull. The shade of difference between skin and the fine scars on his face was more noticeable, and even unconscious he seemed pained.

Obi-Wan leans against the side of the bed, carefully sliding one hand under his master’s chilled palm, and cupping his other hand over it. Obi-Wan could trace the blue of his veins, the dark marring of thicker scars, the thickness of the callouses on his hands, the occasional spot of a random freckle. Obi-Wan squeezes a little, trying to get the hand between his to feel more real and less dead.

There is a medical pod, encasing his master’s lower abdomen, from lower rib to the bottom of his pelvis, providing synthetic processes to replace the organs they’d had to remove until a transplant could be accomplished, channeling his nervous and circulatory systems between his upper and lower body. They wouldn’t tell Obi-Wan the exact extent of his injuries, but he’d heard enough rumors making his way back to the Halls of Healing to understand his master had nearly been cut in half, and he’d received updates on the transport as to when his master was in and out of surgery.

Master Ben’s eyelids flutter restlessly and then settle.

“You have a lot left to teach me, you know.” Obi-Wan whispers. “And I’m pretty sure you’ve survived worse than this so –so…”Obi-Wan swallows again, balancing on the teetering edge of his own calm. “So you’ll survive this too, and go back to horrifying and baffling the Healer’s with your absurd ability to survive.”

The humming of the machines and the low pulse of his vital signs remains utterly unchanged, and seems to expand deafeningly into the quiet of the room. Obi-Wan bows over and presses his forehead to the back of Master Ben’s chilled hand. “You promised to make me a Jedi Knight.” He whispers. “You promised. So you have to survive. And – and I just really pissed off the reconciliation council, so if you could wake up and help me explain this mess, that would – that would be helpful.” His voice tremors, and Obi-Wan bites the inside of his cheek.

He doesn’t get a reply, of course he doesn’t. Moments where the comatose patient dramatically wakes up with poetic timing are for holo-dramas. Master Ben just continues to lie there, and Obi-Wan silently begs him to keep clinging to the dimmed threads of his life.

Death or the Force, Obi-Wan doesn’t care.

He just wants his master to live.

~*~

Healer Ni Hiella only lets him stay in the room for twenty minutes, which is probably ten more minutes than anyone else would have allowed, but he kept his promise to be calm, and she gave him as much time as she could in return.

Obi-Wan passes Master Tholme on his way out of the Hall’s of Healing, confused as to the unreadable look his friends master gives him, but Master Tholme is hardly the only one giving Obi-Wan strange looks. Some of them are curious. Some of them are suspicious. Some of them are scared.

Obi-Wan grits his teeth, keeps his head down, and makes his way back to his quarters, having to bypass one section that was completely closed off to get there. Rumors abound about his master, but no one will name who else was involved, and it makes Obi-Wan angry and frustrated. Someone _hurt_ his master, and it’s Master Ben who is getting all the blame.

Obi-Wan pads in the passcode for his quarters and hurriedly ducks inside to escape the looks aimed at his back only to be slapped in the face with a shock of cold, as though stepping inside had plunged him into icy water.

He knows the touch of darkness in the Force, has felt it often enough that his response is instinctive, yanking on the clean, warm energy of the temple and wrapping it around himself like a shield, the way he was taught to when recovering from the mission to Tavorski.

The cold crumbles quickly, dissipating in the Force, the dark energy falling like mists. Still _there_ , like a bad memory, but losing power now that it’s been disturbed.

Obi-Wan doesn’t understand. His master wasn’t attacked _here_. At least, not that anyone has said. Obi-Wan steps forward cautiously, and feels his stomach plummet when he clears the entryway and sees their living area.

Plasma burns scar the floor in several places, a black scar runs across the white table, and swathes of vines have been severed and blackened, leaving dead patches across the gentle glow that had covered the walls and ceiling. Fallen, withered leaves and coils litters the floor, and a gleam catches his eye.

Obi-Wan’s eyes are burning, brimming with his frustration and anger and grief, and he crouches down to pick up first one familiar lightsaber – his master’s gold-and-ivory copper-bladed one – and another that is unfamiliar. Silver and black, with a gold connector he thought might be a refraction focusing element, to increase the intensity and power efficiency of the blade.

He picks it up and drops it with a hiss, yanking his hand back because his first instincts scream that it _burned_ in his palm. Obi-Wan stretches his fingers, wincing as a prickle trails from his fingertips all the way up to his shoulder before fading. Obi-Wan frowns down at the saber-hilt on the floor, knowing first that it was definitely a multi-crystal blade – with an additional focusing element, which suggested that the wielder was either _the very best_ or _absolutely insane_ , probably both, given the givens – because the second thing he knew was that this blade was his masters.

Obi-Wan uses the Force to lift the blade a second time, bringing it gently to his palm. The gold-and-ivory lightsaber felt alarming to hold, all caged power waiting to burst. This one was far more intense, power tickling across his skin and running through his veins like a live wire, energy practically spilling out of it and taking hold of him. Obi-Wan grinds his teeth and breathes through the slightly painful rush until the tide of it washes past. The energy still sings in his bones in a way he knows he isn’t nearly well-trained enough to use, but it isn’t overwhelming. Obi-Wan holds both lightsabers and very carefully keeps them away from each other as he takes them to his master’s room, where a chest lays open on the floor, and a bundle of cloth is discarded to one side.

 _Someone was rifling through my master’s things._ Obi-Wan scowls, knowing in the back of his mind that this was true. The violation of privacy, of sanctity, cringes through him, and he feels unease dance along his spine and hunches his shoulders. A hot tear runs down his face and Obi-Wan scrubs angrily at it, because this was his home and someone had violated it.

And now his master was in the Halls of Healing, and Obi-Wan was…was…

Alone.

Obi-Wan sniffles, still gritting his teeth, and moves towards the chest he knows his master kept under his bed, a battered little thing Obi-Wan had respectfully never touched. It must have been where the second lightsaber was kept, tucked out of sight and left behind. Obi-Wan doesn’t know why his master gave up his lightsaber and built a new one, but he doesn’t need to know why to understand that the reason was probably painful.

A lightsaber is a reflection of its wielder, after all. A lightsaber was your life.

Obi-Wan sets the ivory-and-gold hilt down on his masters bed and picks up the length of cloth, winding it around the other hilt like a burial shroud while the Force whispered just beyond his ability to understand.

Obi-Wan puts the bundle back in the chest, his gaze skipping over the contents, and closes the lid, shoving the chest back under the bed.

Obi-Wan scrubs at the tears on his face again, returns to the main room, and starts cleaning up the mess.


	6. Chapter 6

Master Tholme hovers outside the sealed door to his padawan’s healing room, frustratingly helpless. He doesn’t have the clearance to open the door, and it takes more effort than it should not to unleash his anger on the Temple Guardian making themselves as unobtrusive as possible down the end of the row.

“Master Tholme.” He whips around, and Master Healer Vokara Che eyes him sympathetically, wisely having called out to him before she entered his reach.

“How is he?” Tholme demands, feet rooted to the ground for all his hands can’t seem to stop shaking.

She eyes him consideringly and then steps in closer with a soft sigh. “Physically, Padawan Vos will be fine.” She informs him. “The skull fractures are easily mended and while we’ll have to monitor the concussion for at least a ten-day, he should recover without complications.”

Tholme closes his eyes in relief, but can’t let go of the vice gripping his chest. “And…and otherwise?” He asks, voice dropping to a hoarse whisper.

She’s too seasoned a healer to give him a look of pity. “The psychic trauma presents a more difficult recovery.”

“Is that what we’re calling Falls now?” Tholme cracks bitterly. The look she gives him is unimpressed. “They won’t tell me what happened, but I can _feel_ it. I just don’t understand. All I know is it’s caught up in whatever mess Naasade made.” He begs her for answers, clenching his hands thought that doesn’t stop the shaking.

He hadn’t expected to take another padawan. Not at his age, and he certainly hadn’t expected it to be the little rascal he’d rescued from Kiffar back in his Watchman days. But that frightened little youngling who’d clung to his leg had turned into an outgoing, too smart for his own good initiate looking for trouble, and Tholme…He hadn’t stood a chance, really, when the boy crashed back into his life, sticking like a burr to the retired Watchman. Tholme had seen too much potential and found too much joy in watching it grow, and he’d come to realize his jealousy over Quinlan’s future for the desire that it was, and claimed the boy as his padawan.

Quinlan had been far from an easy padawan; prone to boredness that got him in trouble, prone to anger, and too malleable to the things he saw, struggling to keep himself _himself_ when he used his gift, and bitter about his failures in a way that Tholme had never quite understood, but this…

Tholme had never worried about this. About his padawan Falling.

Quinlan was mercurial, but always so _bright_ , in the Force.

Healer Che studies his face – and a bit more than that, if the gentle sweeping over his mind was anything to go by – and then draws him in closer, tucking them into the shadow of the locked door.

“His Fall was not of his own doing.” She says quietly, scanning the nearest faces for any hint of attention. She should not be telling him this. The entire matter has been thoroughly sworn to secrecy until the Council can deliberate on it, and Tholme almost buckles at the relief of answers. “Well, that isn’t entirely true.” She mutters, and his chest aches.

“What did he do?” Tholme asks, a resigned sort of dread in his gut, far more intense and aching than usual.

“I should not have been told this and I should not be telling you.” She warns him sharply, her presence in the Force pressing against him, testing him, and Tholme nods. “Your padawan found his way into Master Naasade’s things, and took it upon himself to attempt to lift the memories bound in Master Naasade’s old lightsaber.”

Tholme’s eyes slide shut. “Quinlan, you little…” Tholme grits his teeth, feeling he should have realized his padawan was up to more than his usual mischief when he left their quarters the other day. Another thought crosses his mind, and he frowns at the healer.

“Did Naasade Fall?” He questions. He knew the man was greyer than most, but most Shadow’s were, and he knew the man didn’t achieve his level of skill and power, or more importantly, _instinct_ , through happenstance or study alone.

“I believe that that is currently up for debate.” Healer Che mutters, still pinning him with a serious stare. “But what a man like that can handle and what a teenager like Quinlan can are vastly different worlds, Master Tholme. So as his healer, yes, I consider this a matter of psychic trauma, and I will treat it as such.”

“Can I see him?” Tholme asks, having been turned away twice already.

“He’s sedated, partially to let him heal and partially because he is…” She purses her lips for a breath. “He is not just Fallen. Whatever he took from that lightsaber…the memories were deep, Tholme. He seems…irrational, and confused. And….” She closes her eyes briefly, sorrow pressing between them. “And he poses a danger, to himself as well as others.”

“To himself?” Tholme repeats bluntly, a chill running though him.

“I was told the injury he received was a result of…backlash, in the Force. He attempted to turn a lightsaber on himself, and Naasade intervened.” She explains, scanning the nearest faces again. “Two Jedi throwing the Force around in close proximity…” She shakes her head a little.

Tholme nods in understanding, though his thoughts feel far away, his one good eye staring at the floor and at nothing in particular.

“I assume the lightsaber in question has been appropriately contained?” He questions absently, old habits from his investigation days rearing their head.

“It wasn’t brought to us, no.” Healer Che shakes her head. “It’s not a dark artifact, merely…burdened with its own history. The Soul Healer’s could cleanse it, but I rather think that should be up to Master Naasade. The blade _is_ still his, and it’s not something to be handled without due care.”

 _A lightsaber is your life_ , they all knew. _Your crystal was a reflection of who you were_.

“If it didn’t come in with Naasade and Quinlan,” Tholme says, patterns ticking in the back of his mind. “Then they left it behind.”

“It wasn’t in the corridor when I got there.” Vokara shakes her head.

“No.” Tholme replies. “My padawan wasn’t injured in the corridor. He was in Naasade’s quarters.”

“I suppose they’ve been sealed, then.” Vokara comments, eyeing him in confusion. “You aren’t going to do anything rash?”

“I wasn’t thinking of destroying it.” Tholme drawls wryly. “I’ve more discipline than that, and it would hardly set an example for my…for my padawan.”

“Then what is your concern here?” She inquires. “Because now you are concerning me.” She crosses her arms, one brow arching.

“Padawan Kenobi just left.” Tholme murmurs.

“Yes?” She nods, puzzled. Then it dawns across her face. “Oh. Oh, surely they’ll have already cleaned up? Or they’ll be sealed?”

“I’m not sure going home to find he’s been locked out will be any more pleasant than going home to find whatever mess was left behind.” Tholme sighs, feeling ragged, but if he can’t help his own Padawan…he needs to be able to help _someone_.

“No.” Vokara agrees, a brief flash of hot anger coming off her. “No, it would not be.”

“I’ll take care of him.” Tholme nods, feeling more settled now that there is something he can actually _do_. “Just…take care of my padawan?” He asks hoarsely, and Vokara offers him a firm nod and an unusually soft look, for the typically well-grounded healer.

“I will do everything in my power to help him.” She promises. “As always, Tholme.”

~*~

The market streets of Jedha were beautiful riots of color and noise. The air was colder than the sunshine and sand suggested, but then, Jedha was a little far from its sun. While the air was still, heat baked from the ground, but when the wind picked up, a chill set in.

Animals and people crowded together, weaving in and out of booths and stalls, pilgrims of a thousand faiths passing through, locals singing and dancing as performers, Temple anchorites offering prayer tokens and receiving donations, and the usual fare of traders and hawkers, scavengers and dealers and bounty-hunters milling around.

Shmi seemed to be in her element, digging through scrap and trinkets, barting with a ferocity and fire Shaak ever saw from the younger woman, laughing and whispering with a clothwoman or two, Anakin brightly orbiting his mother’s star, only occasionally darting off and disappearing right along with Shaak Ti’s nerves, leaving her heart in her throat until the boy reappeared. He made fast friends with a few street children and a few old, feeble-bodied storytellers sitting on stoops and in the openings on alleyways. He avoided those Shaak marked as dangerous with an instinctive ease, and only got into one scuffle, though his spewing diatribe of huttese curses seemed to put the older children off enough to leave him alone.

“Shmi, shouldn’t he stay closer?” Shaak asked, a third or fourth time. The young mother sighed patiently in her direction.

“I’ll know if Anakin gets into trouble.” Shmi reassures her. “And so will you.” She adds.

“But what if he gets hurt?” Shaak inquired, not understanding how Shmi could be so easy with the way he ran about in a strange place among strangers.

Shmi offers her a puzzled look. “How can I protect him from that?” She asks in turn, baffling her master. “Anakin knows what to do if he must, and he knows I will always come for him. I will do him no favors by refusing to let him learn how to live.”

Shaak Ti is slapped in the face by the blatant reminder that Shmi and Anakin were not careless. They knew far better than she ever could the worst that the galaxy could do to them. The togruta woman lifts her gaze to the sky, scolding her own foolishness, and lowers her gaze to Shmi’s, whose sharp gaze is lit with understanding that Shaak Ti forgets, sometimes, where she has come from, and what she has survived.

“I am sorry.” Shaak Ti apologizes. “I am only worried.”

“You’ve been mother to many.” Shmi replies, flashing a quick grin. “But none so young. It seems there are some tasks the Jedi cannot handle so serenely.” She teases with good humor.

“I bow to your superior wisdom.” Shaak replies, tone wry, tipping her head. Shmi laughs softly, and turns towards another seller of…junk, essentially. Bits and odds and ends of machinery, which Shmi rifled through for parts to construct her lightsaber.

Or lightsabers, Shaak imagined, having seen the resulting crystals Shmi had freed from the stone. She’d dreamed last night of the vision she and Ben had had on Ilum, and did her best to keep her piqued interest from her presence when Shmi found something that seemed so oddly familiar.

 _It’s been a while since I taught anyone jar’kai_. She muses, studying the younger woman. _Or perhaps she’ll wield a staff?_

Shaak’s comm-link pulsed against her arm, and she leaves Shmi to her findings and retreats to a quieter spot to take the call.

The holo opens to reveal Master Yaddle, sitting down with her walking stick laid across her knees. The fact that she has mediated just before calling Shmi does not bode well.

“Master Yaddle.” Shaak Ti greets. “How can I be of service?”


	7. Chapter 7

The first thing he was aware of was cold. Deep, leeching cold, and with the cold came fear, came the memories of _train the boy – General! – I will…always love you – only pain, will you find – I **hate** you!_

Ben mind swims through the memories, as he struggles to lift himself, to move, gagging on viscous in the back of his throat and panicking when he finds himself pinned down.

There is a pi-pi-ping of an access panel being requested too many times, and then a sharp, metallic clatter that makes him flinch. He manages to wrench his eyes open only to be blinded, and his limbs flop when he attempts to defend himself-

“Master Naasade! It’s alright, it’s alright.” A familiar sort of voice calls out, sharp and concerned, before warm fingertips brush his skin and Ben recognizes the cold to stem from injury, and not the touch of the dark side. The fingertips expand to warm fingers and smooth palms, gently pressing his arms back down.

“I-hha” His voice fails him the first try, and Ben attempts to swallow against whatever congealed in the back of his mouth. “I’s…bright.” He rasps, letting himself be gentled back down into what he can feel is a bio-bed, though whatever is pinning him makes him very uneasy.

“Lights dim.” Chias says to the room. “You’re a bit more photosesntive than I would have thought, my apologies.” The healer says. “You’re also a bit more difficult to drug than most of my colleagues believed possible, given your…eh…” The Healer trails off, and Ben huffs a little, licking his dry lips, though his mouth is hardly any moister.

“Sssock dra’ in a trash compa’tor.” Ben slurs lightly, attempting to get his eyes to open again, surprisingly difficult considering they were watering from the first attempt.

“As my master would put it.” Chias says, and Ben is rewarded for his efforts by being able to see the faint blue curve of the padawan’s relieved smile when he cracks his eyes open, though every reflective surface dances with halos. “How do you feel?” Padawan Chias inquires patiently, adjusting something just out of Ben’s field of vision, fingers clasped softly around Ben’s wrist, habitually taking a manual pulse to assure himself the readings were accurate.

“Cold.” Ben manages. “Prick’y.” He adds, as the unpleasant sensation sweeps through his limbs. “Water?”

“Water?” Essja glances down, confused as to how water was a feeling before his normal brain catches up with him, and he nods, turning to a console and punching a button. Ben doesn’t get anything so civilized as a cup, and instead has to sip from what is essentially a tube connected to a sterile bag. “I’ll turn the heating system up, though you might just trade cold for numbness.” Padawan Chias sighs.

“Tha’ bad?” Ben murmurs, fighting it as his eyelids stutter to fall shut again.

His healer hesitates, and Ben manages the force of will to keep his eyes open a little longer.

“What do you remember?” Padawan Chias asks, looking almost angry at himself for asking. Ben frowns, trying to get a sense through the Force as to why. He can feel the buzzing presence of others on the other side of the wall, and the clean current that suffused the Temple, and a warning edge of darkness somewhere fairly close, but details swim and shift, eluding him, and his concentration falters.

“Vos.” Ben replies, guilt and worry welling up through the mental static, fear curling in their wake with the memory of the blood that stained his hands. “Is he…?”

“He’ll recover from the injury.” Chias nods, a single strand of lavender hair sliding across his brow, having separated itself from the rest. Ben could feel the healer trying to smooth over the Force with gentle waves of calm and comfort. “Do you….what about….” The Padawan falters, brow pinched, gaze uneasily guilty, and still that whisper of anger. “Grievous?” He inquires.

Ben’s eyelids win, sliding shut, and he lets out a slow, stressed sigh. “Dead. A lon’ time now.” Ben replies, thinking he can guess who is on the other side of the wall now, that has Padawan Chias so unhappy, or at least, he can guess who they represent.

Wasting not a moment on all the wrong things. Anger threads through him, but it makes the cold worse, and he grimaces against the first prickles of real pain.

“Who atta’d me?” Ben asks, getting irritated over how uncooperative his voice and mouth were being through the haze of drugs.

“Master Krell.” His healer answers, and then winces slightly as if knowing he’d just earned a reprimand for saying so.

“Could’a guessed.” Ben replies, bitter, and lets himself drift into the tide-like lull of sedatives and weakness and his own sluggishly pumping heart.

~*~

“Could have guessed?” Master Mundi argues, the moment Padawan Healer Chias steps out of the sterilizer, the tall cerean very well crowding the younger Jedi. “What does he mean by that?”

“Master Mundi!” Shaak reprimands sharply, appalled, and then finds herself superfluous when Padawan Chias steps forward with a small pressure wave of personal Force, forcing the councilor to step back, and give him the space to leave the doorway. The observation chamber seals, cutting them off completely from the healing room.

“That, Master Mundi, is not my concern.” Padawan Chias says very clearly, pale gold gaze stern in his youthful face. “My concern is for my patient, who, Force willing, is in such a state that he will forget this moment entirely. He is not well enough for an interrogation, and I am ashamed of myself for what I just did. I am not doing it again, and _you_ are not doing it again until I clear him. Am I understood?”

“You have a duty to this Order, Padawan Chias, and that man poses a significant-“ Mundi draws himself up, and Shaak groans internally at the callous way that sounded, knowing the other master did not mean it as such, but also knowing that Master Mundi, having a binary brain, did not always make the leap between the logical and the empathic.

“I have a duty to my patient, Master Mundi.” Padawan Chias replies, calmly and firmly. “I understand that the Reconciliation Council needs answers for what Master Naasade has done. I understand that the entire Temple is on edge, given what has occurred and what we do not know. I understand that this entire incident holds dire reprecussions.”

Shaak Ti presses her lips together and attempts to look serene and indifferent. She had been…flaberghasted, at the report given to her after Master Yaddle recalled her and her padawan from Jedha, to say the least. Horrified, and, though she handled it well, engraged. She has no idea why the reconciliation council jumped without looking at where they intended to land, why Master Naasade had them both so tight-lipped and so short-sighted in this matter, but she was thoroughly affronted by the entire manner with which they were handling it.

Particularly after discovering that they had attempted to interrogate Naasade’s padawan without first allowing the boy to ascertain the state of his master and without summoning her to appear in her rightful place in that room. Thankfully, Padawan Kenobi was as stubborn as he was dedicated, and thankfully, Master Tholme had seen fit to guard the boy against any other mistreatment by that body of the Order after apparently finding him cleaning blood up off the floor of his damaged quarters, wallowing painfully in the lingering whisps of dark energy.

Shaak had been hesitant to speak, given that her reappointment to the reconciliation council was still a recent memory and only probationary, but after this…

No.

No more of this.

She would not stand for it.

Neither, it appeared, would Healer Essja Chias.

“So you will understand this; His life is still in the balance, and if any member of this order persists in any manner I find that compromises his well-being, I _will_ cry Challenge. I know my duty as well as anyone can, and I am a Healer before I am anything else. If any further attempts at questioning are pursued, I will challenge. If any attempt to remove me as his primary healer is issued, I will challenge.” He doesn’t even look defiant, standing there, challenging the councilor, merely settled, merely certain.

In that moment, Shaak Ti realizes he just passed his Trial, whatever else may come.

“You feel very strongly about this.” Master Mundi remarks, studying the pantoran padawan.

“I have chosen the path of a Healer-Knight. My first oath is to do no harm.” Padawan Chias replies. “My second is to abide no harm.”

“I understand, Healer Chias.” Mundi sighs, looking speculative, and bows his assent. “Out of curiosity-“

Shaak stifles the urge to press her hand over her face and trill, because sometimes, the cerean does himself no favors.

“- if you cried challenge, admirable as the courage is, do you believe you could win?”

Padawan Chias is more patient with the nature of cereans, and does not flash with anger at what any reasonable being might take as an oppressive warning, and is in fact, truly only curiosity. And a valid question at that – anyone may claim to cry challenge, but crying challenge did little if you did not emerge victorious other than ascertain that you believed your position was worth fighting for. It was an archaic practice, and the only Jedi she’d ever met who’d actually issued one was Master Naasade.

Padawan Chias takes a moment to consider the query – and to ground himself in the force, likely calming down, Shaak notes.

“I believe that I am my master’s student.” Padawan Chias replies neutrally. “And that my master is the only Jedi to ever best Ben Naasade.”

“A considerable argument.” Master Mundi nods. “Though her methods were devious.”

“A fair fight is rarely fairly won, Master Mundi.” Chias replies, sparking both Shaak Ti and Ki-Adi’s intrigue.

“That is not a temple teaching.” Shaak comments, curious.

The young pantoran shifts, and his presence in the Force becomes clouded with uncertainty.

“No it isn’t.” He replies. “It’s something I got from Obi-Wan, who imagine got it from his master. It’s…I’m finding that the temple may not be able to teach us what we most need to know.”

“Know for what, padawan?” Shaak Ti asks, whole Master Mundi frowns, clasping his hands in front of himself.

“For what we face outside the Temple.” Chias replies.

“It has proved sufficient so far.” Mundi comments, though his presence is not so serene as his face.

“Has it?” Shaak challenges, surprising both the padawan and her fellow master.  Surprising herself, as thoughts coalesce together in the back of her mind, forming a picture she had not realized she was looking for. “Or have those who have needed more merely found it for themselves?”

“Please elaborate, Master Ti.” Ki-Adi asks softly, studying her now with his fixated, curious gaze. Padawan Chias glanced uncertainly between them, and Shaak Ti dipped her head in his direction. “You may deliberate with us if you wish, but do not allow us to distract you from your duties, Healer Chias.” She murmurs.

“Thank you, Masters.” Chias nods, dismissing himself. Shaak offers her elbow to the cerean master, who shifts in mild surprise before resting a hand in the crook of her elbow, and allowing her to escort him from the Halls in contemplative silence.

“Could have guessed.” Shaak Ti repeats, voice silvery and cool. “I think I know what he meant by that.” She lifts her gaze to the older Master’s, finding a waiting, calm expectation there that tells her that not all trust is broken. For a being with a binary brain, reconciling her given her break from tradition was likely not a simple affair. “Did you ever notice, that long before his spars became Challenges, Master Naasade often sought out Master Krell?”

“He has been a fighter since his arrival.” Master Mundi nods. “Krell is of a similar vein. They thrive on the energy of their opponents.”

“Hmm.” Shaak humms. “Perhaps a little. But what struck me was that Master Naasade did not spar Master Krell like the others. He goaded him, one defeat after another. I find it more obvious in hindsight, having glimpsed now something closer to his true skill, but he dangled victory in front of Krell’s nose, and always just barely dashed it away.”

 _And he did it with such ease_ , she muses, feeling foolish and strangely exhilarated, just as she did encountering the vast differences of perspective between her and her padawan, like discovering stars out of a void you did not realize engulfed you.

“You point?” Mundi inquires, lips pursing. “So Naasade is the better duelist.”

“No.” Shaak Ti shakes her head, making her _akul_ fangs rattle. She had returned to her traditional Jedi robes, but with a few exceptions; a reminder of a lesson that altered her forever. Her huntress leather and beadwork she had given up for dresses and tabards once more, but she kept her belt of woven _turu_ -grass, her torc necklace of fangs, and she had traded her dun dress for Shili red. “He is not _better_ than Master Krell, Naasade outclasses him entirely, and pretended to only ever be a single step ahead. He was mocking him.”

“And you think Krell Fell because of that?” Mundi pauses briefly, collecting himself, before continuing to let her guide him along. “Then Naasade did lead a Master into darkness.”

“Yes and no.” Shaak Ti corrects. “I think Naasade did push Krell to Fall, and yet, Master Mundi, that is not the point.”

“Then the point is?” He repeats dryly, raising his brows at her, which as a youngling would have made her feel guilty. She is long past her youngling days.

“The point is that Naasade _knew_ he would Fall, and we – _Masters, Councilors, Shadows_ – did not.”


	8. Chapter 8

_Any updates on your master? – SJ_

Obi-Wan hesitates over responding to the messages, just as he has hesitated opening them at all. He takes a deep breath, the air refreshing and green, a soft spray of mist touching his face from the waterfall he was sitting beside, feet dangling over the ledge of the cliff. The flowers on the song tree have darkened with maturity, and the scent of them is calming and crisp, after having hid himself away in Tholme’s quarters for as long as he did.

Below him, among soft sprays of flowers and large, glittering stones than made perfect perching rocks, Shmi and Master Tholme were politely avoiding eye contact as she worked on her lightsabers.

Obi-Wan smiles at them briefly, because three minutes ago they had been having a quiet, heated argument, and ten minutes ago they’d been reminiscing about some culinary something or other that you simply did not find in the core. In a lot of ways, Master Tholme was similar to Master Ben, but Tholme was a lot less…bold, than Master Ben. Quieter, more prone to slipping into the background, whereas Master Ben, wishing to or not, seemed to gravitate attention.

Which in some ways, made Tholme a lot like Shmi.

Both of them had been quietly hovering around him for several days now, and as best Obi-Wan could tell, they actually liked each other – they just could not seem to get along.

Obi-Wan brings his gaze back to his datapad, worrying his lip.

_He’s woken up a few times, which is a comfort to me and distressing to the healers, apparently. He’s not very coherent. Essja’s worried about the transplant surgery. So am I. – OWK_

Obi-Wan sends it before he can chicken out, and checks his other updates, casting aside dozens of meaningless well wishes – angrily, in the cases of those he knows would have snubbed his master just weeks ago.

 _Di'kut linibar beskar'gam.  Bid sirbur te Mand'alor._ – JF

Obi-Wan lets out an involuntary huff at Fett's brusk attempt at comfort, and looks up to see Shmi’s eyes on him for making the sound. His eyes burn a little, and he blinks and looks back down hurriedly.

 _Ni mirdir kaysh naritir be'chaaj te staabi at ibac ti kaysh gai.  Ijaat, sol'yc bal kyr'yc._ – OWK

Obi-Wan replies, even though that one aches to explain. If his master had been wearing armor, after all, perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad, but even _beskar’gam_ didn’t stop a lightsaber. Only cortoisis did that, and why would a Jedi need it?

Besides, one could not be truly Mandalorian _and_ Jedi. And only those sworn to the _resol’nare_ had the _right_ to wear _beskar’gam_ , and neither Master Ben nor Obi-Wan could truly take that vow.

The soft murmur of voices catches his ears, and Obi-Wan glances down again to see Master Tholme once more braving conversation, while Shmi had several pieces of her second saber floating in air. The pieces wobbled, and Shmi offered the Jedi one of her sharpest looks.

Master Tholme hesitates, and closes his mouth, once more settling back against his chosen stone.

 _Ner kar'ta kar'taylir gar kar'ta uur. I heard it happened inside the Temple. I offer you my understanding, if you need it, or even just my susu'r._ – SK

Obi-Wan worries his lip again, rereading the message from Satine. She would be the one to understand, wouldn’t she? How it feels when the person you love and the person who hurt the one you love are both of the same people. _Your_ people.

He worries briefly that word is somehow getting out, and what that might mean when everyone is already so against his master – and then remembers that Satine has been living on Coruscant, in the Diplomatic District, and she has connections here. He worries a little less, and focuses for a minute on shedding his anxieties, at least in that regard.

He rereads the message again, but he still can’t figure out how to reply, what he wants to say. He saves it, to think about, and moves on. He finds a message from Padme and smiles a little, wondering and half-hoping she sent him a poem to cheer him up. For all she’d delighted in sneaking up on him, she was a very uplifting individual.

He opens her comm-message, scans it, registers what it actually is, and promptly chokes on his own tongue, coughing until he can laugh.

_I wanted to draw a portrait of your master for you. Padawan Jeisel was most helpful in providing the description. How accurate was I? – PN_

Obi-Wan’s laugh turns wet, and a little weepy, so he stifles himself, pressing his fist to his mouth and biting down on his knuckles. Down below, Master Tholme and Shmi have both tensed, leaning in his direction, but their gazes are fixated away from him, offering a deliberate kind of privacy.

_I think it’s perfect for the cover of her trashy romance novel. – OWK_

Well, he thinks. She had managed to cheer him up.

 _You’re a very good artist._ – OWK.

He adds, because her art skills are impressive for a ten-year old junior legislature, but then, the Naboo were an artful people.

~*~

The air is hot and sticky, the sun blistering, and the red dust on the ground oddly light when kicked up, drifting lazily back down.

The air is blaring with sound, flashing lightsabers and blasters, the clanking of droids, a mass of chittering, clattering insectoids. Obi-Wan is in an amphitheater, in a killing ground – Jedi litter the dust, and the men is white armor he’s glimpsed before, and droids, and-

And it is overwhelming, and yet he can hear his own blood pumping, and yet-

Clapping.

A slow, deliberate clap, seeming to echo over all the fury and chaos. Obi-Wan turns and looks up, to see a high balcony above the stands, above everything, and a hunching figure in a dark robe. He tries to focus, on the face in the shadow of the hood, as a slow smile spreads across-

“Don’t _look_!” His master jolts him roughly, and Obi-Wan gasps awake with a soft, cold laugh crackling in his head.

His panting breath bounces back at him from the walls, fists clenched in the blanket. Sweat matts his brow and his sleep clothes, and Obi-Wan shivers at the sudden transition to cool air.

“By all seven corellian hells.” Obi-Wan shakes himself and stumbles upright, off Tholme’s sofa, and wipes at the sweat on his neck.

Obi-Wan doesn’t doubt, anymore, that he and his master are sharing dreams. He’s long given up the idea that all of these nightmares could possibly come from his own subconscious, and there are people in them he sees more than once, but does not know, and always, always, he finds his master there, in the midst of horror. The dreams tend to fade hazily after a few minutes. He never remembers much of them, but the impressions they leave behind strike deep.

Obi-Wan paces the floor for a few minutes, too agitated to go back to sleep, and eventually gives up on settling his nerves that way and dresses himself properly, slipping out of Tholmes quarters.

Wandering the Temple alone has not gone well for him of late, but at this hour, only the nocturnal and the fixated are awake, and no one pays him and mind. They won’t let him in to the Halls of Healing after hours, so Obi-Wan makes his way up to the planetarium, a familiar path he hasn’t trekked in months.

To his surprise, the planetarium is already in use, displaying a vast gas cloud, packed with active star-forming regions. Obi-Wan pauses on the perimeter, watching the projection swirl slowly, until a blazing star is born, shedding material chaotically until it stabilizes with bursting flares.

“Is that new?” Obi-Wan asks, stepping down under the display, where an elder sits in the shadows, color reflecting off her fur.

“It’s very very old, actually.” She chuckles, voice surprisingly rich and lyrical, causing Obi-Wan to doubt his assumption of her age. “Not unlike me.”

Doubt quashed.

“That star collected nearly seven hundred planets.” She says. “And quite the pretty gas ring.” She lifts a clawed hand, shifting the display forward, watching the solar system form at high speed until there it was. Obi-Wan draws in to it, mesmerized at the display. A fierce blue star, a golden-green gleaming band of gases, and a field of shimmering worlds, all small and refractive, either primordial or ice, and when it turned just right –

“It looks like a flower.” Obi-Wan murmurs in awe.

“Mm-hmm.” She humms. “I saw it like that when I was a young padawan, on my first mission with my master. Our hyperspace engine broke down mid-flight.” She snorts. “A good engineer, my master was not.”

Obi-Wan smiles faintly at that, feeling distant now from his dream.

“I never forgot it.” She murmurs. “To this day, I’ve never seen another sight so beautiful.”

“What’s it called?” Obi-Wan inquires, accepting her gesture to sit beside the elderly bimm.

“Oh, some catalogue designation.” The elder twitches her whiskers. “It hardly matters now. The system no longer exists. Even stars die.” She sighs. Obi-Wan looks at her, at the age evident in her fur, and her eyes, and says nothing to that, though his stomach clenches at the sadness of it.

They sit and watch it spin, for a while.

“Do you have a constellation you prefer?” She inquires, when the sped-up solar system begins to lose the symbolic shape.

“All of them?” Obi-Wan replies sheepishly. “I just liked to watch the stars. It made me feel…” He pauses, not sure what he means to say.

“Small?” She suggests, eyes gleaming in the reflection of the display. He nods. “In a way that felt…comforting.” He adds, and she agrees, clasping a claw-tipped hand over his.

It had been comforting, when facing the dread of being sent away, to look up at the wheel of the heavens and realize it was all so…insignificant, even if only for a moment.

“How is your master?” She inquires, and Obi-Wan flushes, not realizing he would be recognized. When he stammers and doesn’t find his voice, she relieves him by continuing. “Did you know I brought him into the Temple, the day he flew in from the black?”

Obi-Wan eyes widen, and the elder’s whiskers twitch in amusement. “Master Polkit, Padawan Kenobi.” She introduces herself, tipping down her ears. Obi-Wan nods back, bowing his shoulders.

“Blue stars burn brightly, and burn out.” She muses, and Obi-Wan fidgets. She eyes him, hand still clasped over his. “Your master is no blue star.” She says kindly, in her rich voice. “He told me when he came here that he had found purpose, and I do not believe he is going to leave until he has seen it through. Do you?”

Obi-Wan shakes his head, managing a shy smile for the elder. “He is rather stubborn.” He remarks, feeling more able to let go of his doubts, of his fears, by clinging to that knowledge.

“Then trust in that, Padawan Kenobi.” She purrs lyrically, sharp teeth flashing a grin. “Stubborness, and the Force.”

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MANDO'A
> 
> Di'kut linibar beskar'gam. Bid sirbur te Mand'alor = The idiot should wear armor. So says the Mand'alor. (ie- tell him i said that)  
> Ni mirdir kaysh naritir be'chaaj te staabi at ibac ti kaysh gai. Ijaat, sol'yc bal kyr'yc. = i think he gave up that right when he gave up his name. Honor, first and last. (ie - he's honorable through and through/ honorable to the core)
> 
> Ner kar'ta kar'taylir gar kar'ta uur = my heart knows what your heart cannot speak of.   
> susu'r - promise to listen, more than simply to hear, if he wishes to speak.


	9. Chapter 9

“He came here to destroy me.” Krell seethes, held immobile by the braces that were supporting his mending bones. Twice he’d refractured them, struggling furiously against his healers. “To corrupt this Order. He corrupted that padawan, don’t you see? None of you would do what had to be done. So I did. _I_ did.”

“It is not what you have done to Master Naasade that most trouble me, Master Krell.” Shaak Ti replies calmly, the picture of placidity. “It is what you have done to yourself.”

The room was shielded, but inside she felt as if a frost ought to linger, and could nearly taste the darkness on her tongue, like a bitter, overly rich wine.

“That imposter is no Master!” Krell sneers, reptilian lips curling in disgust. What bothered her deeply, was that for all his arguments were tainted, he seemed still so like hisself. Stern, proud, and unyielding. His manner, when he was calm, was deliberate and calculated, and even when he was spitting his vitriol, he did not become a stranger.

She had thought, that when they Fell, they would be something…. _other_. Different and wrong, in ways which were blatantly obvious.

But Pong Krell was still…

“You let him get close to you, Master Ti.” Krell’s voice lowers. “He’s a dangerous man. He will twist you away from yourself, as he has attempted to twist the Order, and that poor boy in his care.”

He sounds genuine, in his concern, for all the words speak of…madness. Obsession, even, almost possessive of the man he is condemning.

“To you, he did this?” Master Yaddle asks, speaking at long last.

“I did not let him win!” Krell snaps sharply, eyes gleaming with a sickened light. “I defeated him.”

“You Fell.” Shaak Ti says simply.

“I took power.” Krell retorts, hissing deep in his chest. “To protect this Order. I am in control. Me. With this power, I can ensure the Jedi will never be defeated.”

“Because win, you always will?” Yaddle asks, voice strained and thin.

“Yes.” Krell grins. Yaddle purses her lips, ears drooping, and nods, more to herself than either of them.

“Consider your words, carefully, we shall.” Yaddle says, leaning on her stick for support. “Rest, Master Krell. Heal.”

“Don’t let him get you.” Krell says, as they turn to leave. “Master Ti. Don’t let him get to you.”

Shaak stares at him, and the yellow sheen in his eyes, and bows her head, swallowing sorrow.

She and Master Yaddle leave the room, and it seals and locks behind them. The Temple Guardian waiting just outside for them bows shortly, and returns to their post at the end of the row.

“Fear losing, Master Krell did.” Yaddle comments gravely, as they make their way out of the Halls of Healing. “Himself, he lost to that fear.”

“Yes.” Shaak Ti agrees, though the word is sour in her mouth. His strength had led to his weakness, and they did not see it coming.

“Knew, you believe Naasade did?” Master Yaddle prompts her, prodding her with her hollow stick.

“He held a grudge against a Master he had never met, Master Yaddle. I found it odd, because it was so much more…personal, than any other behavior I’d seen from Master Naasade. He does not seem to approve of many of our fellows, but it is less about them and more…systematic.”

“Notice too, that, did you?” Master Yaddle tuts, shaking her head. “Speak of what you see, more, you should. Needed, it is.”

“The last time I spoke out, Master Yaddle, you suspended me from my duties and called into question my worth of my rank.” Shaak Ti reminds the elder, though she no longer strafes against the memory. In a way, the test of faith had shown her more of herself. Freed her, in a way.

“My council, that was not.” Yaddle replies tersely. “Agree with that decision, I did not.”

“You surprise me.” Shaak admits. Yaddle’s mouth relaxes, forming a wry, almost doting smile.

“A decade, two.” The elder shakes her head, shifting bound locks of brown hair. “Younglings still, you are. Much learning, you still have in you.”

Shaak lifts a brow. “Master Yoda does not share that view.”

“Trained out of such thoughts, the long-lived are.” Yaddle tells her. “Condescending, our Jedi find us, when treat all the more of them as younglings, we do. Learn to measure by your lives, we must. Draw away, Yoda does. Out of touch, he believes his age has made him. Too long, he finds himself to have held sway. Doubt, he does.”

Shaak Ti trills squeakily, as shocked as she had been for her first blush. “Doubt? Master Yoda? He’s the Grand Master of the Order! He’s trained generations of us!”

“And history, his line has preserved, through his teachings. But archaic, they are. Change, Master Yoda has always resisted. But accept that things change, he does. That things are lost, he does. The problem, that has become. Yielded much, he has, and find it detrimental now, we have.”

“You’re talking about Obi-Wan’s report on the history of the order.” Shaak Ti whispers, well aware that the padawans findings are not yet common knowledge.

“Winnowed, we have been.” Yaddle sighs creakily. “Down to the root. Dire, this is. Looming, darkness is. Sense it, have you?”

Shaak Ti pauses, frowning. “No.” She replies, and feels a prickle trail from the tops of her montrals to the trailing ends of her lekku. “Naasade. This is about…” She closes her eyes, drawing on her own senses, on her own recollections. “He told me once, shortly after he arrived, that he had recently experienced a more pronounced talent for prescience. I didn’t consider what that might mean in regards to the way he then behaved. He had a vision, didn’t he?” Shaak Ti asks, pulling on string to see what whispered back at her from the shadows.

Then she pauses, one thought striking a chord.  “But why lay so much on one man’s sight? The future is always in motion.”

Yaddle regards her quietly, wizened eyes boring into Shaak Ti’s, centuries of wisdom weighed in a heartbeat. Shaak Ti remembers that look, rare as it was. First when she was still a crècheling, little more than toddling and still prone to biting her agemates when they upset her. And again on the day that Shaak Ti bid farewell to her old master, and cleaved to a new one to become a Shadow.

“Because see, he did, the return of the Sith.” Yaddle answers her quietly.

Shaak Ti sucks in a breath, scrabbling for calm as it shatters inside her, at the weight of truth under Yaddle’s words, and the clear ringing accession of the Force, avowing it as real.

There is a soft jangle, reverberating up her lekku, and she realizes she is physically shaking, trying to absorb that the nightmares of the past might once again walk the galaxy, and her hands lifts of its own accord to clasp her _akul_ fangs.

She remembers prying them out of the skull of the beast, a girl covered in blood becoming a woman. Once, she had believed the _Akul_ to be the worst monster she would ever face. It was a people killer, it devoured whole villages, and claimed many of those who came to hunt it.

 _I was a girl armed with an ordinary weapon, and I slayed monsters_. Shaak Ti reminds herself. _I am more than that now_.

She knows that, to the marrow of her bones, but cannot quite muster the conviction to swear that it will be enough.


	10. Chapter 10

“ – I’m not saying it’s Obi-Wan’s fault, of course,” Depa says, helping Wah-Yen through his precariously balanced stretch. The rodian padawan’s yellow-green skin shudders with his muscles, and Depa watches the tremors smooth out as his form falls into line. “But Master Mace is concerned now over what Naasade may have taught him.”

“Master Naasade.” Wah-Yen corrects reflexively, pale blue hair pods quivering, lips prusing, willing himself to hold the stretch a little longer.

“After what’s happened?” Depa retorts skeptically.

“No one knows what’s happened.” Luminara points out, willing herself not to be cross, though she still is. _Ground yourself,_ She reminds herself _, take all that feeling, all that energy, and feel it flow down your body, rooting you to the world._ It helps her temper.

A little.

“No one will _say_ what happened,” Depa points out. “That doesn’t mean they don’t _know_.”

Wah-Yen drops out of the stretch, and Depa frowns at him until she too begins to wobble. “Don’t you find it suspicious?” Depa adds, sweat beading on her brow as Luminara effortlessly holds the same pose. They were Mirialan stretches, after all. “How Naasade trained him in secret, where no one could see what, exactly, he was teaching that boy?”

Luminara understands her friends perspective, of course, especially with how uncertain and tense things had been in the Temple, but Depa had not seen how it had affected Obi-Wan, to hear his master was injured. That bewildered, frightened anger had not belonged to a student who doubted their master.

“You want to know what Master Naasade was teaching him?” Luminara lifts a brow, and shifts into the next pose. Depa gasps in relief, wavering, and copies the new form. Wah-Yen narrows his starry eyes, looking skeptical, but follows along nonetheless.

“Yes!” Depa exclaims. “And so does the Council.” She blurts, and then looks mortified, dropping from her stretch and eyeing both her friends in a panic. “Don’t think about that! I didn’t say it!”

Wah-Yen rolls his eyes, no doubt thinking that Depa put far too much importance on the secrecy of the council, and Luminara rubs her fingers along the hem of her sleeve thoughtfully.

“Well then,” She says serenely, “that can be arranged.”

Luminara pulls out of the stretch, retrieves her mat and replaces it, and makes it to the threshold of the salle before her friends catch up, scrambling behind her.

“What?” Depa asks, poking her in the back of the arm. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I am going to go find Obi-Wan.” Luminara replies loftily, enjoiying herself.

“He’s under guard!” Depa hisses.

“Master Tholme is not a guard detail.” Luminara says testily. “And Obi-Wan is not in any way under restrictions.”

“Then why has he hardly been seen since it happened?” Wah-Yen inquires neutrally. “Rumor has it-“

“Care less for rumor, please.” Luminara says. “And would _you_ want to be out and about with everyone pointing fingers at _your_ master?”

“Everyone has always been pointing fingers at his master.” Wah-Yen points out.

“Not like this.” Luminara mutters. “Besides, he’s surprisingly shy.”

“Why is it surprising?” Her rhodian friend inquires again.

“You really haven’t interacted with Master Naasade at all, have you?” Luminara inquires in turn, lifting a brow. Wah-Yen shrugs.

At this time of day, they predictably find Obi-Wan in Master Tholme’s quarters. Less predictably, neither Tholme nor Shmi are with him today.

But little Anakin Skywalker is.

The four year old glares at them from his perch in Obi-Wan’s arms, and Luminara does not doubt his defense of the padawan. She’d seen the four-year old kick a knight in the shin the other day at breakfast, just for giving Obi-Wan a dirty look.

Which isn’t to mention the rumor that he’d shoved a padawan out of a turbo-lift to keep them from talking to Obi-Wan.

Using only the Force.

Luminara wonders if his mother scolded him for that or gave him a lolli.

“Is everything alright?” Obi-Wan asks, his voice slightly raspy but tinged with concern. There are shadows under his eyes, and in them, and his face is pale.

Luminara bites down the reflex to ask him the same question. “Would you come spar with me?” She asks instead, forging ahead as if it were completely normal.

He glances past her to her two friends, crowding in her shadow. His red hair and black-and-white tunics always make his eyes seem more green, and in his mood, it’s a painfully lifeless color.

“They could stand to learn a thing or two by observing one of our spars.” Luminara says, welcoming the warmth that finds its way into her voice. She hadn’t realized quite how much she liked the younger padawan before. “Their Soresu is a calamity.” She adds, feeling her lips twitch in anticipation. No, she has not asked him to spar to demonstrate Soresu, but if she tells him the real reason, he won’t believe her.

“If Obi goes, so do I!” Anakin says fiercly.

“I’d have it no other way.” Luminara tells the youngling, who blinks softly for a second and then resumes scowling suspiciously.

“I…” Obi-Wan, however, looks at a loss, and Luminara waits him out. “Yes, I can spar….just, let me clean up.”

Luminara is puzzled by that, as he looks impeccable, and Anakin thrusts out a slightly sticky hand, which is coated with…sand, of all things.

Luminara considers asking, and decides against it.

~*~

Ben is careful to keep his breathing even and slow, though his heartrate no doubt spikes. Someone is in the room with him, and he does not recognize, yet, who it is. It is not a healer, and it is not one of his friends.

If he has any of those left, that is.

“You gave it away when your eyes stopped moving.” The voice triggers some dull memory, but he can’t focus enough to place it. The new combination of drugs leave him feeling perpetually off-balance, and always slightly too warm. Even his brain feels as though it sloshes, and his thoughts get lost in the waves. “You don’t sleep soundly, even sedated.”

Caught out, Ben works on putting forth the effort to open his eyes. His photosensitivity has lessened, but it takes a minute still for the shapes in the room to resolve themselves.

Ben prefers now to be unconscious. To be unaware of the box trapping his lower abdomen, synthetically replacing his missing organs, connecting disrupted veins. He hallucinates, sometimes, and he’s been deeply uncomfortable since he hallucinated Grievous, and then becoming Grievous, one stolen body part and cybernetic replacement at a time.

 _Don’t you know who I am?_ Grievous had laughed, before hacking wetly, looming over him, one hand dug in deep to his flesh. _I am you. Can’t you feel it? I’m inside you. And you will become me._

Needless to say, it had been one of the most upsetting and unnerving nightmares of his life.

Greying hair, one good green eye, one scarred bad one, a weathered face, human. Ben opens his mouth, about to ask “General….?” Before he remembers when he is. He closes his mouth, fervently trying to think, when his memory deigns to cooperate, and he remembers the man’s name, if little else.

“Master Tholme.” Ben greets him, voice smoother than it had been in days. His lips, however, remained chapped. He licks them irritably.

“What did my padawan see?” Master Tholme pries bluntly, and without pretense.

Ben shifts, tipping his head back as well as the sculpted pillow will allow. “More than I would wish upon anyone.”

“Care to be more specific?” Tholme growls. “It broke him, whatever the damn memory was-“

“It wasn’t _a_ memory.” Ben says. “I can’t say what broke him, Master Tholme, there were so many that could have.”

“It was your life.” Tholme mutters bitterly. “It didn’t break you.”

Ben laughs, it’s painful, and half-manic, and doesn’t really sound like a laugh at all. “Didn’t it?”

“They won’t let me see him.” Tholme admits, like an accusation.

“No.” Ben murmurs. “No doubt they think darkness is a contagion that can merely be walled away. They’re wrong. We don’t pick it up somewhere. It’s seeds are already inside us.”

“How do I…How can I….Can he be saved?” The man asks brokenly, weary beyond his silvered years. Ben is intimately familiar with that weariness, that dragging despair.

“Yes.” Ben murmurs, utterly certain. It was the single truth around which his entire existence hinged, since the day he walked out of the desert storm.

 _They can be saved_.

“How?” Tholme demands, already his spirit brightening with the spark of hope.

“Ah….” Ben shifts, making sure he looks to the man in the eye. “ _Who_ , actually.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry everyone for the delay! I'm back to working twelve-hour shifts, so sometimes my brain is mush that doesn't want to make the story happen.

Plo Koon humms low in his chest, contemplating the tableau before him with keen interest. Beside him, Adi Gallia is frowning very seriously, which he thinks does the young woman little favor, as she does it so often. Across from them, Master Fisto appears to be taking bets, an easy smile on his face, and between them, and the rapt spectators, Obi-Wan Kenobi was demolishing his way through a good portion of the senior padawans currently in temple.

It had started quite simple – a demonstration with Padawan Unduli, drawing interest for the secrecy of Padawan Kenobi’s skills. A challenge from Padawan Billaba, who haughtily remarked her friend had gone too easy. And from there, well….

Let it never be said that Jedi weren’t competitive.

Padawan Kenobi didn’t win every spar, but the challengers kept coming regardless. Padawans readily four to five years his senior, and most having been apprenticed for even longer than that, and Padawan Kenobi was winning some still, and that was remarkable.

“Padawan Kenobi will have this one.” Plo remakrs quietly, at least as quietly as he could.

“He’s on the defensive.” Adi doubts. Plo lets out a soft laugh.

“Precisely what I mean.” He says.

Adi narrows her eyes on the spar, trying to see what he has seen.

“How many, do you think?” Plo inquires idly, watching the glimmer of sweat shine on the red-haired boys brow, and darken his tunics. His opponent was not nearly so heated, but was breathless with the effort of maintaining their ferocious offense and getting nowhere.

“How many…?” Adi repeats, lengthening the question.

“Rounds. His seventh, yes?”

“Eight.” Adi replies. “There was the one-“

“Ah, yes.” Plo nods, recalling now the bout that had been over almost the moment it had begun. “Impressive endurance, for one his age.” Plo comments, and then gestures for Adi to pay closer attention to the fight, when her focus has strayed to him.

A twirling lunge, fully prepared to be blocked, and Padawan Kenobi does not block. He allows the clash to throw him back, lands like a spring on one foot, and propels himself into the air in a true ataru arc. His opponent spins, expecting Obi-Wan to land at his back, and does not realize that the younger padawan stopped his motion mid-air, bouncing off nothing as though nothing where a solid wall, flipping, to arc higher and turn, remaining directly above his adversary, and then diving down in a truly marvelous display of acrobatics and force technique.

Obi-Wan’s previous opponents flinch in sympathy, having learned by now that the bite of the green-blue blade was a bit more than they were used too, but Padawan Kenobi surprises again in a display of excellent blade-control. He disengages his lightsaber coming down, for every observer already knew the blow would be a critical strike, and an uncontestable victory.

This way, at least, the senior padawan would not end up in the Halls of Healing, as even a blade at training strength could disable an opponent when you attempted to cut them in half with it.

He finishes the maneuver neatly, in a crouch just under his stunned opponents elbow, saber-hilt level with his jaw and parallel to the floor, sweat running down next to green-blue eyes that were utterly focused.

“ _What_.” Knight Gallia hisses through her teeth.

“And adaptability. To think he is only a junior padawan.” Plo Koon muses, charmed by the Knight’s surprise at the elaborate and unexpected maneuver. The councilor does, however, eye the crowd of awe-struck observers, feeling that they could probably expect an increase in training accidents in the near future, as bold padawans and foolish young knights attempted to copy that display without an adequate study of Ataru and the correct manner in which to apply the Force in such a way.

 “You almost sound as if you approve of his master’s methods.” Adi accuses.

“I do.” Plo replies, and she startles, looking younger than her years when she does so. He’s pleased at the affect. “You should not be so shocked. I doubt there was anything coincidental about a single aspect of that padawans training, and here you have the result. He’s had that boy for fourteen months, and a mediocre initiate has become a duelist capable of going toe to toe with any senior padawan.”

“There is more to a Jedi than their ability to wield a lightsaber.” Adi protests.

“And so there is more to Obi-Wan Kenobi.” Plo agrees, frustrating her completely. “And to the man who has trained him, Knight Gallia.”

A coldness enters her eyes at his scolding, but Plo will leave it for now and let her stew over what he has said. He turns his gaze back to Padawan Kenobi as the boy watches his defeated opponent limp away, too stunned to even be angry with his defeat. Kenobi’s expression is remarkably placid, but if one is careful – and Plo is always careful, with the younglings, as mercurial as they can be – he can get a sense of what the boy is shedding past his impressive mental shields. Well trained or not, he is young yet, and still one of the loudest broadcasters in the order. You cannot always hide what you wish to, particularly when you are releasing it into the Force.

Inside, Kenobi is brimming with disbelief, and confusion, and a rising sense of righteous indignation.

 _That_ , Plo thinks amusedly, _is a coming argument his master well deserves_.

~*~

Obi-Wan pushes his damp hair away from his forehead and peers through the observation window to see Healer Chias clearly arguing with his Master, a patented healer’s placid, unamused look on his face, arms crossed. Master Ben is still ashen in complexion, but his gaze is clearer and more focused than it has been. Obi-Wan can tell by the subtle lift in his brow and then tense muscle at the back of his jaw that his master is very unhappy and still attempting to be politely persuasive.

Obi-Wan can’t hear what’s being said, but the argument ends when Healer Chias very clearly tells him no, and then leaves the room. His master shifts on the bed- or attmets to, and a pained, sickly look crosses his face before he lays his hands carefully at his sides, not touching the pod-unit that encased his lower abdomen.

Obi-Wan looks away when Essja enters the observation room and lifts a curious purple brow at him.

“What was that?” Obi-Wan inquires.

“Oh, we were simply arguing about what your master is and is not allowed to do, now that we’re prepping for transplant surgery.” Essja explains, habitually checking the displays and the posted schedule of medicines and drugs.

“Is he…ready for that?” Obi-Wan asks, nervous now. He knows Essja has had trouble keeping his master stable, and that they keep swapping out drugs when the side-effects go bad, and he’d overheard Healer Ni Hiella debating their odds with their different options with Essja.

Essja looks bak at him, expression going a little glum, but his pale gold eyes don’t dim. “I’m going to be honest with you, Obi-Wan, he’s as stable as I’m likely ever going to get him. There was just…too much damage, too much to compensate for, to keep him like this for very long.”

Obi-Wan nods, chewing on his lower lip. “And the replacements?” Obi-Wan asks.

“Well, he flat out refused bio-symthetics, which was problematic given that I thought that might be our only option, if not a great one for someone _that_ Force-sensitive, but we’ve had a bit of luck.” Essja smiles wryly. “You’re master’s DNA in a wreck – I mean, between the foreign packets and the chromosome damage and the - _never mind_ – we couldn’t get anything to clone viably. Until some enterprising shadow saw fit to produce a sample of Master Naasade’s uncorrupted genetic code, which _I really should have had in the first place_. We’ve got them growing now and they’re passing all the tests. Our chances of a successful organ replacement are looking very good.”

Obi-Wan grins back. “That’s great!”

“Yes it is.” Essja agrees. “Though now I’ve got the council breathing down my neck again.”

The grin slips off Obi-Wan’s face, and Essja drops a hand on his shoulder, squeezing briefly. “He’ll be fine, Obi-Wan, whatever comes.”

“I hope so.” Obi-Wan sighs. “Can I?” He gestures, and Essja glances through the observation window.

“I’m going to say yes.” Essja tells him carefully. “Because he could use the distraction. He’s not doing so well with immobility.” The healer confesses. “And he refuses to have any sort of therapy until after the transplant.”

“After the transplant, they’ll never catch him.” Obi-Wan snorts, knowing his master was truly skilled at the art of conveniently disappearing.

“My thoughts exactly.” Essja says wryly.

~*~

The sterilizer wouldn’t let Obi-Wan through the second door until the water left on his skin and hair from his shower evaporated completely, and so he stood and fidgeted impatiently for a few minutes, stewing as his thoughts ran around and around until they tangled and snarled.

Finally, the door opened, and Obi-Wan darted through.

“How come you didn’t tell me!” Obi-Wan blurts, and his master blinks at him stupidly.

“Sorry?” Master Ben inquires, voice scratchy.

“You should be.” Obi-Wan retorts, calming himself a little as he walks over to the side of the bed and climbs onto the stool there. “I just trounced _five_ senior padawans. How could you not tell me? I thought I was disappointing you!”

Master Ben huffs a laugh, which makes Obi-Wan’s ears burn.

“I suppose Master Vumoyo couldn’t help himself.” Master Ben muses, fingers twitching before he forces them still again and looks over his padawans face, studying him in that impersonal, critical way he had that sent chills across Obi-Wan’s skin. “I both am and am not sorry.” He states, and Obi-Wan’s mouth drops open in indignation. “I am sorry you felt like you were disappointing me – you never have, Obi-Wan.” He adds, pinning him with that look. “But I am not sorry about what your ignorance gave you.”

“Gave me?” Obi-Wan protests.

“Yes.” Master Ben smiles weakly. “In not knowing, you believed that nothing I taught you was out of the ordinary, that what I asked of you was not only possible, but that it should be easy, that it was something anyone your age should be capable of. So you threw yourself into it with a drive and relentlessness to prove yourself that would leave most beings weeping in the dust. And here you are.”

Obi-Wan can feel the pride his master has for him, trickling through their bond, and bites the inside of his cheek. “You’re an awful master.” He accuses mulishly.

Master Ben laughs. “I promised to teach you what you needed to learn.” He smirks sharply. “I never promised you’d _enjoy_ it.”

Obi-Wan rolls his eyes, but can feel himself smiling too.


	12. Chapter 12

“So why am I still practicing Shii-Cho?” Obi-Wan asks, buoyed on a sense of giddy relief and the fact that his master was currently a captive audience for his questions. “It’s an initiate-level form.”

Master Ben sighs softly, but he looks a little relieved as well, a smile playing at the edges of his mouth, successfully distracted from his current predicament. “Shii-Cho is not an initiate-level form, Obi-Wan. It is the foundation upon which all lightsaber combat is based. We only formally require the most basic practice of Shii-Cho from our students, but an advanced study of Shii-Cho can be used to devastating effect, particularly on the battlefield. It is a true combat form, as opposed to a dueling form. When all other forms fail, Shii-Cho is your fallback. Why?” He poses the question, and Obi-Wan shifts on his stool.

“Because no matter your opponent, some rules remain the same.” Obi-Wan replies. “The basics of attack, parries, and body zones.”

“Precisely, but the true element of Shii-Cho is not knowledge, but _trust_. A true practitioner of Shii-Cho is not guided by the mind, but by the Force alone. You have to push yourself to the edge, release yourself into the Force, let it move you.”

“That’s risky.” Obi-Wan replies. “They warn us not to do that.”

“When you were eight, yes.” Master Ben drawls knowingly. “But Master Fisto is a practitioner of Shii-Cho, and to watch him fight is like watching water flow over the falls. Unpredictable, random, but with absolute purpose.”

“When have you seen Master Fisto fight? He refuses to challenge you.” Obi-Wan questions.

“You aren’t with me all the time, padawan.” His master replies, hands twitching again as one of the sensors on the medical pod blinks, beeps, and then quiets. Obi-Wan shiver at the deep rush of unease that spills through the back of his mind, where his bond with his master exists.

“What about my sand exercise? Is that a normal exercise or is it one of your weird made up things that no one else has ever heard of?” Obi-Wan asks, leaning forward to prop his elbows on the edge of the bio-bed, dropping his hands over his master’s arm. The twitching stills, and the taste of bile fades from his mouth. “Because none of my friends have to do that, though they try to help.”

“It’s an improvisation on a rather advanced Force perception technique.” Master Ben admits, reaching up with his other hand to scratch at his beard, which is beginning to lose its shape and turn into a red-hued bristle-bush. “And no, that doesn’t mean you’re allowed to stop practicing.”

“I wasn’t going to ask.” Obi-Wan sniffs at the implied slight, though the dimple in his cheek belies his airs of disdain. “But how long does it take to master?”

Master Ben thinks about it, blue-grey gaze drifting off a bit, eyes narrowing, looking up, looking down, frowning. “Two and a half years, I think it took me?”

Obi-Wan swallows dryly, wondering why that was a question and deciding, by the creeping sense of _guilty-sad-distant_ he gets through their bond, that he doesn’t really want to know. “And so you thought it was great thing to start your brand new padawan off with?”

“Well…”His master considers slowly, eyelids drooping slightly, which Obi-Wan expects means he’ll drift off into sleep soon. “I wasn’t intentionally trying to do it until I had already halfway done so.”

“You know, no one else has a master half who says things even half as vaguely distressing as you do.”

“Thank you.”

“No.” Obi-Wan shakes his head, and feels the tickle of a silent laugh through his thoughts. He cocks his head, focusing on that tether, and narrows his eyes at his master. “Why is our bond always stronger when you’re asleep? Or nearly asleep?”

“Is it?” His master visibly pauses, blinking to focus.

“Yes.” Obi-Wan sits upright, crossing his arms. “We share dreams. That’s…that’s _intense_ , for a bond. But when we’re awake, it’s like trying to hear a whisper through a crackling comm unit. Are you…” Obi-Wan forcibly relaxes his fingers, which where clenched into tight balls. “Are you blocking it? I know I’m too loud, but we kept working on it and it was still so….so weak, but are you…” Obi-Wan fidgets, uncomfortable and a little sad, because the one rule of Force bonds was trust, and if his master was blocking it, if it was because he didn’t _trust_ Obi-Wan, that…

Hurt.

“Oh.” His master say quietly, expression blank as he stared back at his padawan. “I hadn’t thought of that. I…I don’t mean to, Obi-Wan. There’s just so much I…don’t want to let out. I didn’t realise it was closing off that connection as well…”

Some of the hurt fades away, and Obi-Wan nods. “Is that what happened to Quinlan?” Obi-Wan asks, voice barely above a whisper. “Tholme just said he was hurt, caught up in…in whatever happened, but I found your lightsabers on the floor. Both of them. I understand how his gift works, and I think I understand why you gave up your old lightsaber. Your nightmares are…master, they’re awful. They’re terrifying.”

“Yes.” Master Ben replies simply, looking very old in the eyes.

Obi-Wan rubs at his nose, feeling his eyes sting. “That – that _jerk_.”

“Obi-Wan?”

“It’s my fault!” Obi-Wan blurts out. “I gave him the passcodes to our quarters, and _this_ happened.” Obi-Wan jerks his hands towards the pod, and the healing ward, and everything in general.

“And Quinlan went snooping where he didn’t belong, and I left a dangerous artifact where anyone could have found it. There is plenty of blame to go around, Obi-Wan.” Hi master says softly, voice rueful.

“But he tricked me! He promised me he’d be in and out and he- he…why’d he do it?” Obi-Wan stings against the broken trust, face flaming in anger. “He’s my friend, and I’m just…I’m so mad at him, but he’s hurt, and….”

“Quinlan often does things because Quinlan simply can’t help himself, Obi-Wan. What do you want to do with that anger?” His master asks, as he always does. “Do you want him to be hurt, because he broke your trust?”

“No.” Obi-Wan jerks, hunching down further. “But I do want to scream at his stupid face.”

Master Ben tilts his head, considering, and then shrugs faintly. “It wouldn’t be a terrible idea for you to visit him.”

“ _What_?”

“They haven’t allowed him any visitors.” Master Ben comments. “Which is likely the worst possible thing they could do to him at the moment, leaving him alone with what’s stuck inside his head. But I imagine if you look very shy and blink very softly at her then Healer Che would let you visit your friend. He’s mostly asleep, from what I can tell.”

“From what you can tell?” Obi-Wan questions, thinking it an odd phrase and wondering where his isolated master was getting his information.

“He’s in a shielded room, but I am particularly sensitive to certain currents in the Force. More so than anyone else here, at least.”

“And then what?” Obi-Wan asks, accepting that explanation, though he doubted it was anything so simple. His amster kept his secrets, and he kept a lot of them.

“Hold his hand and think of happy things.”

“Hold his hand?” Obi-Wan frowns. All of Quinlan’s friends knew to be very careful touching him.

“He needs something innocent to hold on to.” Master Ben replies. “Amidst all that…pain.”

Obi-Wan glances at the wall, in the direction of Quinlan’s room. Quinlan was a tricky sort of person, mercurial and both more mature and yet immature than Obi-Wans other friends. But he’d always seemed stronger than any of them. A little older, a little more clever, a little bolder. Obi-Wan’s afraid to see him now, and that made him feel small and wretched.

“Master…”Obi-Wan hesitates, thinking about Quinlan, locked in a shielded room, thinking about the reconciliation council, waiting in the wings, and the stares, probing and accusatory, that followed him into the Halls. “Did he Fall, because of…”

“Because of me?” His master inquires lowly, struggling now to keep his eyes open.

Obi-Wall feels a hard knot in his throat, and in the pit of his stomach. Guilt-grief churns from his master, and Obi-Wan shivers. “So he did Fall. Master Windu said…said you were involved, in – in the Fall of two other Jedi, and that you’d done something….”

“I’m surprised he hasn’t come for answers.”

“He’s not on the reconciliation council-“

“He’s a _busybody_ -“ His master interrupts, snorting.

“And Healer Chias strictly forbid them from haranguing you without his permission, and he isn’t giving permission. You should have seen him when he found out Master Tholme snuck in here.” Obi-Wan finishes, giving his master a short-tempered, serious look. The uneasy twitching starts again, fingers splaying, but carefully avoiding touching the med-pod.

“Involved is perhaps the most accurate descriptor, Obi-Wan.” Master Ben sighs, rubbing tiredly at his eyes. “It was all just…unfortunate circumstances and bad timing all around.”

“They accused you of being a darksider.” Obi-Wan spits tersely. “That you _wanted_ them to Fall. And that you did something...forbidden.”

“I did.” His master admits, voice tight and tense, as were his shoulders. “Though at the time I was not entirely lucid. A terribly bad flashback, I’m afraid. Not that it’s an excuse for such actions. What I did was…violent and lethal.”

Obi-Wan’s brows furrows. “They didn’t say you killed anyone. And no one is dead.” He adds, realizing that his master, pooling shame, might need the extra clarification.

Surprise, quick and sharp as a flash of lightning. “He lived?”

“You weren’t entirely lucid.” Obi-Wan points out, internally relieved at that fact. If his master had done whatever it was he had done with proper focus, well…well, then someone would be dead, and Obi-Wan would be left…

Just left.

“Hmm.” Master Ben hums, frowning, though his closed eyes under his brooding brows where not opening back up. “That’s one crisis averted and one more problem to deal with…later….”

Obi-Wan cocks his head, watching his master fight sleep for another few twitchy seconds and then lost the battle with fatigue and sedatives.

“I’ll go visit Quinlan.” Obi-Wan murmurs, reaching for his master’s heavy, worn hand again. “Happy thoughts.” He adds with a huff.

 _And please no nightmares_.


	13. Chapter 13

“He requested me?” Mace asks skeptically, brow deeply furrowed. Master Ti looks back at him somberly, silver eyes giving nothing away.

“He did.” She replies serenely, before turning her head to watch Mace’s padawan practice the vapaad in a blur of force-enhanced speed. Her torc necklace shifts, the fangs clattering lightly, and Mace finds his gaze drawn to them, to the bold _shili_ red she’d adopted, the silver-white woven belt, and the odd bracelet she’d taken to wearing, black and white delicate fish and broad-petaled flowers.

Mace doesn’t know why it makes so much of a difference, but it does. She shows more of herself now than she ever has, and he feels like he knows her less and less.

“And his healer is allowing us to see him?” Mace asks, recalling the look he’d received the last time he’d stepped into the Halls, even for matters entirely unrelated to Healer Chias’s patient.

“He is.” Master Ti nods, returning her attention to him. Depa finishes the kata, scowls at her own performance, and tries again. Her arms are shaking with fatigue, and Mace exasperatingly contributes her new drive to the sound beating she received in the salles from Padawan Kenobi.

“Depa.” He calls shortly, and she stops, turning a thin frown on her master. “Enough for now.”

“But I can-“

“Padawan.” Mace warns, and her expression darkens mulishly, but she nods, relenting. Mace has strict rules about the practice of vapaad, chief among them being she isn’t allowed without his supervision. “Your cultural anthropology report hasn’t been revised yet. You should go work on that.” He comments. “And drink something. Something that _isn’t caff_.” He adds, knowing his apprentice. His padawan had a strange aversion to tea, and her casual addiction to caff was increasingly worrying as he found her with a thermos in hand at later and later hours. Master Koon claimed that allowing them to make their own mistakes was part of adjusting them to independent adulthood, but Mace itched to intervene regardless when he found her red-eyed and twitchy at half past midnight, cramming for an assignment she’d had weeks to work on that was due the next morning.

His padawan sets her jaw defiantly and charges off, and Mace turns back to find Shaak Ti’s face lit with humor.

“They think being a senior padawan means they’re essentially knights, ready for it all.” She comments wisely. “It’s a difficult stage of development.”

“The closer she gets to actual knighthood, the less certain I am that I’ve taught her what I should have.” Mace grumbles, falling into step as Shaak Ti leads him out of the salles.

“Welcome to mastery, Master Windu.” She flashes a smile, revealing her sharper teeth. “She has a few years yet for you to smooth over her rough edges.”

“I’m pretty sure I could get cut doing that.” He complains lightly, feeling relieved that apparently such apprehension is perfectly normal, if the other master finds it to be so amusing.

“Well, yes.” Master Ti replies. “But isn’t it worth it?”

Mace snorts, recalling his and Depa’s last mission, and her tendency to throw things at his head when he embarrassed or offended her adulthood by treating her as he had when she was ‘just a youngling!’

Depa had a hot temper, and some of those things bruised.

“I reserve my opinion on the matter.” Mace says, his own lips twitching up at the corner.

Master Ti trills lightly, a musical note such as only togruta can produce, and Mace shakes his head.

They make it to the Halls of Healing unaccosted, and Mace can feel the stern look Healer Chias gives the from the moment they enter the ward, and has to scan his surroundings. The pantoran isn’t exactly difficult to spot, waiting for them at the end of that particular row of healing rooms, and they make their way across the Hall.

“He is due for surgery the day after tomorrow. No upsetting setbacks.” Healer Chias greets them tersely, turning on heel to lead them down the row. “In regards to that, I’m going to request that both of you keep your shields up and your emotions in check. He may have requested to see you for your convenience, but his current mental state is left rather vulnerable by the medications I have him on, so let me just be clear that if I say stop, you stop.”

“We’ll be utterly professional, Healer Chias.” Master Ti assures the younger Jedi soothingly. “You have our word.”

Mace lifts a brow at her speaking for him, but reminds himself that she is a member of the Reconciliation Council and therefor this is her business, and not his. His presence is merely a courtesy.

“How vulnerable?” Mace inquires. “Is he completely lucid?”

“His cognition and perception are just fine.” Healer Chias reports. “But some of the new painkillers have resulted in increased anxiety and his ability to filter out what he feels through the Force has been inhibited, which not a particularly favorable combination.”

“Perhaps it would be better to wait?” Master Ti frowns in concern, and Mace almost jumps at the statement, because they need answers-

“I think addressing your concerns may actually do him good at this juncture, Master Ti. Reduce his stress, at least, as he won’t be up to visitors for at least a ten-day post op.”

“That seems excessive.” Master Ti remarks quietly, as they stop outside the door to Master Naasade’s room.

“Part of it is I intend to place I’m in a completely sterile environment to reduce any risk of follow-on complication, and part of it is that I’m going to induce a healing trance once the sedatives wear off. We’re replacing several major organs, all of which are brand new. It’s going to take awhile to get his system into fully functioning order and he is going to be absolutely miserable until then.”

“Ah.” Shaak Ti nods, message understood, and Mace grimaces.

They step into the sterilizer, and Shaak Ti gets prompted to remove her jewelry, which is made of organic materials the scanners don’t like.

When they are allowed into the room, Healer Chias moves directly to the bedside, inspecting the medical equiptment and Master Naasade’s vital’s, as well as receiving a progress report from the medical droid. Master Naasade, who had been staring at the ceiling, drops his gaze and flicks it between Mace and Master Ti, who smiles warmly at him.

His gaze settles eventuall on Mace. “You interrogated my padawan.” He accuses.

“I brought him before the reconciliation council.” Mace replies, careful to kee his voice neutral.

“Then you were complicit in his interrogation.” Master Naasade remarks. “Which I find just as unethical.” He turns to Shaak Ti. “As the only member of the reconciliation council _not_ involved, I will be addressing you in regards to their poor discipline and adherence to protocol in their treatment of my padawan.”

Both of her brows lift, but she nods assent to that.

“Protocol was followed-“ Mace retorts.

“He’s a junior padawan, he can’t be made to testify-“

“He wasn’t-“

“And he should never have been brought before the reconciliation council without a chaperone-“

“I was there-“

“Of _his_ choice.” Master Naasade finishes cuttingly, pinning Mace with a cold grey-blue look. At that, Mace does clench his jaw and acknowledge that the other man had a point. “And he should not have been led into that chamber without warning.”

Healer Chias glares at all three of them, mouth a thin line, but doesn’t interfere except to adjust the way Master Naasade was carefully propped up, as well as he could be given his current predicament.

“Very well.” Mace nods shortly, crossing his arms. “Now are you going to answer our questions?”

“Certainly.” Naasade snaps, looking surprisingly steely for a man who was grey in the face, hair and beard unkempt, body near prone.

“The situation with Quinlan Vos we marginally understand, though your explanation may be examined furthur once his testimony is available, but what happened with Master Pong Krell?” Mace asks.

Naasade favors him with a look of utter disbelief. “He stabbed me. You were _there_ , Mace.”

Mace shifts uncomfortably at the way Naasade so easily slips into using his first name. They were little more than wary acquaintances.

 _In this life_ , he thinks, and that thought disturbs him greatly. He wonders, sometimes, with the way Naasade looks at them all, what that other life was like, that other when. What they were like, what Mace himself was. He talks to them as if he knows them better than they can imagine, and sometimes, when he looks at them, when they give him warning looks, when they back away from his familiarity, the bitterness in his eyes, before his shields swallow it all up, is painfully damning.

“But what occurred between you and Master Krell?” Shaak Ti inquires, standing solemnly apart from the both of them. “That would have guided him towards such measures?”

“You mean why did he hate me?” Naasade smiles, the expression twisted darkly. “Why did he Fall?”

“If you can explain that.” Shaak Ti dips her head.

Naasade leans back into the support of the bio-bed for a minute, gaze shifting between his fellow masters again, he moves his hands, and one grazes the med-pod. He jerks his fingers away like it burned, and cringes with a shudder before calming himself. The sharp tang of _dread-fear_ that clouds the room prompts Mace and Shaak Ti to share a concerned look, which Naasade does not let pass unnoticed, indignation entering his gaze, and defiance.

“He Fell because he was a coward.” Naasade snarls quietly, nearly baring his teeth. “And he hated me because I proved it.”

“Master Krell has never stricken me as fearful. He has braved much in his service to this order-“

“Is it bravery when you simply know you are the best?” Master Naasade questions, his voice having flipped like a switch to a strange, soft silk, prodding and quietly disdainful. “Master Krell was a superior being. Intelligent, powerful, he possessed sheer strength and far surpassed his peers from a young age, let alone his adversaries. What are corrupt corporations and scheming politicians and rabble-rousing despots to a Jedi of that caliber? Playthings, dancing on a string until he decides to cut their cords. He has never been truly challenged, until _me_.”

“And how did you know that?” Master Ti asks, as though none of this bothers her, not his attitude, not his accusations.

“Have you ever had a conversation with the man? He’s charming, to be sure, but I’ve befriended besalisk’s before. That sneer at the edge of his lips when he speaks _at_ you isn’t a speceist imagining.” Naasade scoffs. “I _know_ , Master Ti, because I studied him.”

Mace understands, then, that that statement is the utter truth. But Master Naasade is speaking in the past tense as in the _past_ tense.

_He knew Krell would Fall because he had already witnessed it._

“And you pushed him.” Shaak Ti says simply.

“I knew what his flaw was.” Naasade nods. “So yes, I drew it out. I played on it. Deliberately. _Pettily_.” He admits, with a wince around his eyes. “I anticipated that eventually he would snap. But I had hoped for something less ruinous. A fit of rage, perhaps. I wanted to flush out his poison so that it could be dealt with, but I hadn’t anticipated the fact that he would encounter a taste of the darkside while I had him at his breaking point. That was… _spectacularly_ bad timing.”

“Why did you not tell anyone? Why not consult with the Healer’s that Krell may have been susceptible to darker influences?”

Naasade looks back at her flatly, and then his gaze skitters, catching briefly on Mace’s, before landing on the wall. Healer Chias fidgets, looking between all of them nervously.

Mace holds his breath, because what he had seen in that look-

Anger. Betrayal. Loss.

Naasade hadn’t told anyone because Naasade _wanted_ to break Krell. Because Naasade despised him personally and with a vengeance.

“You can trust us, Ben.” Shaak Ti says softly. “You are not one man against the galaxy, you know. Aren’t we friends?”

“I cherish you dearly.” Naasade murmurs, looking back up at her. “But that has nothing to do with it.”

She purses her lips, clearly disagreeing on that point.

“And what of your actions?” Mace changes the subject, believing there was little more Naasade could say on the topic of Krell’s motivations, and troubled all around by the implications of what Mace has just concluded. “The technique you used was lethal, and displayed a level of brutality not acceptable in a Jedi.”

“I had a flashback.” Naasade says. “I didn’t realize it was Master Krell.”

“That does not excuse the fact that you used such a technique at all.” Mace replies sharply.

“It does when you consider that who I mistook him for is the _only_ being I have ever attempted that technique on and that _that_ being was a cyborg. It was an attempt to disarm mechanical limbs, and generally perfected on battledroids. On them, lethality was not in question.”

“You say that like it didn’t work.” Master Ti comments, tilting her head, puzzled in several different ways as to his claim.

“It didn’t. Cortoisis components in his machinery made use of the Force against him particularly difficult.” Naasade remarks, fussing with his unkempt beard.

“And your past with this individual was traumatic.” Shaak Ti comments. “Are you prone to flashbacks?”

Naasade’s expression is very neutral, as they veer into more intimate territory. “Rarely.”

“But you also do exhibit, on occasion, a violent startle response.” She continues.

“Yes.” He mutters.

“And you have not sought treatment.”

“I’ve dealt with it rather well, I believe.”

“Until now.” Shaak Ti says reprovingly, and Naasade glares at her. “You have presented a clear and present danger to those around you, Ben. This can no longer be ignored.”

“I haven’t been ignoring it.” The man protests. “I’ve been handling it.”

“Not well enough.” Shaak Ti replies. “If your first slip nearly cost a life.”

“Hardly an innocent one.”

“ _Ben_!” She snaps sharply, appalled, and Naasade looks ashamed of himself, face flushed with heat.

“Calm down.” Healer Chias orders quietly, looking to all of them. Mace lifts a brow, innocent in this, and the Healer in turn gives him a dirty look, as if the entirety of it was Mace’s fault.

 Master Ti takes in a breath, her gaze hurt and sad when she looks upon her friend, and declares quietly; “The Reconciliation Council will deliberate on your testimony in regards to your actions and the actions of your fellow master, but my immediate recommendation is that you be assigned a Soul Healer once you have recovered from your surgery.”

Naasade nods sharply, not quite meeting her eyes.

 _That might be a problem_ , Mace groans internally. Time travel, in his opinion, was a terrible headache to deal with.


	14. Chapter 14

“ – and he knows all about machines just like amu and – oh.” Anakin pauses in the midst of telling Obi-Wan about one of the friends he made while Shmi had been working with the mechanics, turning his head as if looking through the wall, and Obi-Wan pauses with him. “Can we go to the Halls?”

Obi-Wan looks down at Anakin, who blinks up at him with his desert-sky-blue eyes, waiting expectantly. “We still can’t see Master Ben.” Obi-Wan says, reminding himself to stop biting the inside of his cheek every time he remembered that. A ten-day is hardly an _eternity_.

“Okay.” Anakin says, and trots off anyways. Obi-Wan, bemused, follows.

What they find in the Halls of Healing is a commotion between Master Tholme and Healer Che, and Obi-Wan is glad and surprised to see Master Tholme back in temple. He hadn’t heard from him at all since his quiet departure on a task he said was meant to help Quinlan recover, though he hadn’t offered more details than that.

 _Please, please let him have succeeded_ , Obi-Wan hopes, wanting his friend back, even if he was going to have to grab Quinlan by his dreadlocks and shake him for a while first for being a total _berk_.

“Did you know he was back?” Obi-Wan asks Anakin, and the four year old shrugs, bouncing on his toes, and then grabs the hem of Obi-Wan’s tunic and drags him around the arguing adults.

“ – not the least of which is the state of her mental wellbeing, Master Tholme-“

“He’s still Quinaln Vos, not some – some monster-“

“That is _not_ what I said.” Vokara replies heatedly. “But he is not well and she is already traumatized and scared. You have taken her out of a terrible situation, Master Tholme, but that doesn’t mean that thrusting her at strangers can’t still do her more harm. And we _are_ strangers.”

“Naasade said-“

Anakin tugs sharply, and Obi-Wan stops eavesdropping and follows his charge around the main hub, behind a data terminal, and then on his hands and knees next to a long waiting bench, where in the shadows he could just make out a skinny young twi’lek.

“Oh,” Obi-Wan remarks blandly, despite his surprise. “Hello.”

Anakin flops onto his stomach on the floor, props his chin in his hands, and smiles at her.

Her green eyes seem massive in a pinched-thin blue face, and underneath the too-big cloak – likely Master Tholme’s – that she’s huddled in, she looks grimy and ill taken care of.

She flinches back, and Obi-Wan carefully lowers himself as well, crossing his arms and propping his chin in the crook of an elbow, so that he is even lower than Anakin, as unimposing as he can be. He offers her a soft smile, but she just shrinks in on herself, shivering even in the temperate Halls.

“ _Sei goh ohk_ Anakin. _Dei_?” Anakin asks, in rapid-fire Ryl. She perks up a little, glancing warily between the pair of them, and then peering out around the halls and the legs of those moving around.

“ _Ohk korjin loo circaa_?” She asks hesitantly, finger curling tightly into the robe bunched around her frame.

Obi-Wan’s lips part slightly, saddened by that question, but Anakin gives him a quick look to not speak and then looks back at her, lowering his hands from his chin and scooting his shoulders forward a bit, so he’s almost under the bench with her.

“ _Korjin go ohsi_ depur _circaa, vil dan go ohsi tloke_.” Anakin says quietly, in the same somber, resolute tones as his mother.

“ _Ish dos keo sah Sihse_.” She whispers, trembling.

Anakin frowns, the sort of frown he gets when he’s trying to solve a puzzle, and he turns and stares at Obi-Wan’s face for a minute, as if that helps him concentrate. Obi-Wan just stares back, not sure either how to explain to her that the Master’s here were not what she was used to. Were not _owners_. Also, his grasp of Ryl was not quite up to par with the Skywalker’s.

Which did, however, put him leagues above Master Tholme in that regard. Tholme, having been stationed on Kiffar for most of his career, didn’t speak Ryl at all.

An idea seems to occur to Anakin, because he sits up and scans the area, spotting Master Tholme and Healer Che looking around, clearly trying to locate their missing twi’lek, and scrambles up with a quick “ _Imhalyan_.”

 _Watch_.

“Anakin!” Obi-Wan calls after him, but the blonde just charges straight for Master Tholme, who stops at the sight of him, looking a little relieved to be honest, as he then scans hopefully for Shmi or Obi-Wan, and Anakin…

Anakin stops right in front of him, looks back at Obi-Wan and their new acquaintance, and then promptly stomps on Master Tholmes foot with all the strength his tiny body could muster.

“Skywalker!” Healer Che chides, looking aghast, while Master Tholme slides his foot back, looking more confused than anything.

“What did I deserve that for?” He asks the youngling.

“Nothing.” Anakin chirps, and trots back over to the bench, sprawling back on the floor. “ _Dey_?” He says proudly. “ _Koa_ depur.”

“Anakin, than wasn’t nice.” Obi-Wan scolds quietly, as Healer Che and Master Tholme watch the three of them with careful frowns.

The little twi’lek stares at them, hard and suspicious, for another minute, and then slowly, reluctantly, relaxes. “Aaylas’ecura.” She murmurs, introducing herself.

Anakin beams a grin, and Obi-Wan smiles.

“Well met, Aayla Secura.” Obi-Wan murmurs kindly, offering his hand.

She hunches, staring widely at him, but again, slowly, shakily, she reaches out and grabs it, her smaller fingers chilled in comparison to his own.

“ _Ohk cea y uru loo_?” She asks Anakin, who sits back up as Obi-Wan carefully lifts himself to a kneeling positon, just letting her hold his hand.

“ _Ji ji t'al loo_!” Anakin reports gleefully. Obi-Wan huffs. “Thanks, Ani.” And Aayla shyly, skittishly lets herself be drawn out from under the bench, and then clings to his tunics. Obi-Wan can feel her bones through her frail skin, and her pounding heart drumming where their ribcages line up. She’s frightfully easy for him to lift up, though she has to be at least a few years older than Anakin.

“You _are_ the best, Obi-Wan!” Anakin says. “She should know that. Everyone should know that.”

“Padawan Kenobi, Young Skywalker.” Master Tholme addresses them, the adults braving to come closer now that she is no longer hiding quite so well. “Thank you.”

“For stomping on you?” Anakin cocks his head.

“No.” Tholme replies.

Obi-Wan smirks a little at that and catches Healer Che’s eye. She offers him a quick look and then scans the little twi’lek in his arms with gentler version of her usual medical scrutiny.

“You brought her here for Quinlan.” Anakin says clearly, and everyone looks down at him, where he stares shrewdly back up at Master Tholme with another one of his mother’s looks.

Obi-Wan carefully cradles the youngling in his arms and contemplates the bizarre nature of that proposition, wondering how a little twi’lek rescued from sentient trafficking connected to his fallen friend.

“Anakin?” Obi-Wan asks. Anakin breaks his stare with Quinlan’s master and looks up at him, four years old and with far too much insight behind his innocent eyes.

“You’re the best, but you’re mine.” Anakin says, with childish aplomb. “She can have Quinlan.”

“Oh, I see.” Obi-Wan says dryly. “Is that how it is?”

“Yes.” Anakin says, rolling his eyes as if Obi-Wan was being an idiot.

“Gentlemen, no.” Healer Che intervenes, crossing her arms, lekku twitching in vexation. “That is not happening. Padawan Vos is in isolation and she needs medical attention.”

“Healer Che, please…” Master Tholme steps forward, a glint of helplessness in his one good eye.

“What exactly do you hope to accomplish by dropping a youngling in his lap? That isn’t how healing works! And what about her? She isn’t a pawn to be used in some attempt to-“

Anakin tugs on Obi-Wan’s sleeve, and Obi-Wan lets the boy pull him away from the argument, though the way Tholme shifts his balance tells Obi-Wan that at least half of the old watchman’s attention is still on them.

“Where’s Quinlan’s room?” Anakin asks softly. Aayla keeps turning her head, trying to keep eyes on all four of them.

“Anakin, we are not breaking in to Quinaln’s room.” Obi-Wan says reasonably. “Healer Che has a point.”

“But just to say hi.” Anakin wheedles.

“Anakin.”

“ _Obi-Wan_.”

Obi-Wan takes in a breath, conflicted over confusion verses concern versus….

He _knows_ they shouldn’t.

 _Sometimes you need to forget what you know_ , His master taught, _and rely on what you feel_.

Obi-Wan closes his eyes, and focuses on his feelings, and on the bright bundle of jangling energy cradled in his arms, and the bright flaring star that was Anakin when his mother wasn’t obscuring him. There were threads of darkness through all that light, settled low in the Force, like a sluggish murk, full of all the tension, anger and fear in the Temple, full of the darkness Quinlan let in and Master Krell exuded, drawing on the pain of patients in the ward, and seeping into all their uncertainties.

Obi-Wan wanted to try and scrub it away, but that wasn’t what he was after, at the moment, and he didn’t even know if such a thing was possible. A master would have done it by now, if it were, wouldn’t they?

Obi-Wan lets his sense of surrounding fade, and his sense of self, his thoughts and senses unspooling until there is just…the Force. Sensationless, but absolute.

There are no whispers, no visions, and after he appears to take too long, Anakin pokes him in the thigh, and Obi-Wan comes back to himself. He blinks down at Aayla, whose eyes are wide now with awe, and a shy smile is on her face. She tugs on his tunics. “ _Rao_! _Rao_!” She chants, wanting him to do it again, and Obi-Wan shakes his head.

“Well?” Anakin asks shrilly.

Obi-Wan sighs.

“Just to say hi.” He concedes.

 _Sometimes_ , Obi-Wan thinks, _there isn’t any difference between the Force and your instincts. So trust your instincts_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RYL:
> 
> Sei goh ohk Anakin. Dei? = My name is Anakin. Yours?  
> Ohk korjin loo circaa? = Are they kind here?  
> Korjin go ohsi depur circaa, vil dan go ohsi tloke. = They aren't depur here, and you aren't owned.  
> Ish dos keo sah sihse. = He called himself master.  
> Imhalyan. = Watch.  
> Dey? = See?  
> koa depur = no depur  
> Ohk cea y uru loo? = Is this one good?  
>  Ji ji t'al loo! = The best!  
> Rao! = Again!


	15. Chapter 15

Quinlan hears the locks on his door begin to cycle, and sits up, flopping cross-legged on his bed, aggravated by the very sight of the bare walls around him, and painfully eager for that quick glimpse he gets of _life_ and _light_ and _jedi_ when the seal breaks and the Force floods back into the room.

The Force floods in, and with it the blazing star that was Anakin Skywalker, and Quinlan tenses, hands clenching into the sheets of his bed, because, because –

Because he hated Anakin Skywalker.

And he liked Anakin Skywalker.

He feared Anakin Skywalker.

And he loved Anakin Skywalker.

And he didn’t know which of those was real and which weren’t, because Anakin Skywalker was-

A little boy.

A brash knight.

A –

Even the memory of a memory lances, telling him not to think about that, so strong was Ben’s conviction on the matter, and Quinlan reminds himself, for the thousandth upon a  thousandth time, that he is _not_ Ben.

He’s not Ben.

He’s not that other Quin.

He’s not any of those other people who had their hands on that saber, some in violence, and some in care, all of them crowding it in intensity, drowning him inside his own head.

“Quinlan?” Obi-Wan says quietly, and Quinlan jerks, tearing his gaze away from the clear, innocent blue gaze of a four year old who had no idea who he could become.

Where Ani was a blaze of raw power in the Force, Obi-Wan was a much less impressive presence, but more…beautiful, in his own way. An aurora compared to a sunrise.

He was also no less conflicting. Quinlan admired him, and loathed him, liked him, and pitied him, but mostly…

Mostly, Quinlan was just grateful. Because Obi-Wan, whose trust he had broken, whom he knew was angry at him, who was right to be, had come, and had kept coming, and in his hands he carried nothing but kindness, and memories as light as they were grounding, giving him something to hold onto, to find purchase within himself, when all else was…bordering on madness. Obi-Wan came, and offered him an intimate part of himself, casting memories to Quinlan like life-rafts in a raging sea.

Obi-Wan offers him a hesitant smile, though his eyes are still pinched with worry, studying Quinlan, and –

‘ _You look sad_.’

Quinlan startles, and his gaze drops to the bundle in Obi-Wan’s arms that is not just a bundle. The voice drifting into his mind is quiet, but clear as a bell, a prod more than an intrustion, and Quin lets it past his shields because to Quin, it _belongs_ there.

Green eyes, too big in a pinched, grimy face; eyes that he knows from the memory of a tall warrior, graceful and unafraid –

‘ _They don’t match_.’ She adds, and Quinlan foused on what is here and now, before his eyes, to find her sporting a familiar, quizzical frown as she point at him.

At his eyes, a sickly acidic yellow, and the lighter, mellower yellow stripe across his face.

Quinlan feels his face twitch and stretch into its own wobbly smile, and he lets out a shaky laugh. “Yeah…I know.” He says.

“Did she just-“ Obi-Wan asks, and pauses, twitching, when the door opens again behind them, and a peeved Healer Che crosses her arms.

“Padawan Kenobi!”

~*~

“What were you thinking?” Healer Che demands, after having all but hauled them from the room. Master Tholme took charge of Aayla, who drew his robe around her lekku and huddled directly in his shadow as a junior healer escorted them away to get her seen to.

“It’s not Obi’s fault!” Anakin says shrilly, standing in front of him and leaning back against Obi-Wan's legs.

“Ani, it is my fault.” Obi-Wan says, offering the Healer a wincing look of apology for the interruption. Her lekku twitch, but she nods almost imperceptibly for him to go ahead and deal with the younger boy. “I knew it was against the rules, but did it anyways. It’s merely Healer Che’s duty to enforce those rules.”

“The rules are stupid!” Anakin declares sharply, head tilted all the way back to scowl up at Obi-Wan now.

“No, they are not.” Obi-Wan corrects. “She has very good reason to keep Quinlan in isolation. He’s not well, Ani, and he could be harmful to other people, even if it’s not something Quinlan would normally do.”

“But we knew he wouldn’t hurt her!” Anakin whines. “I could feel it!”

“We knew, Ani, but Healer Che didn’t, did she? And what about Aayla? Aayla’s not well either, and while I think both of them could use a friend right now, she could have been upset by meeting Quinlan like that.”

“But she wasn’t.” Anakin protests.

“Did we know that? Before we went into the room?” Obi-Wan challenged.

“The Force did!” Anakin says, waving his hands as if this was completely obvious and Obi-Wan was being overbearing.

Obi-Wan takes a breath, reminding himself that meeting Anakin head on in an argument rarely ended well. The Force whispered to most Jedi, elusive and luring, and could be difficult to discern.

From all he could tell, it most certainly did not _whisper_ to Anakin Skywalker.

“I believe it did too.” Obi-Wan says, and Anakin shoots him a disgruntled, betrayed look, wondering why Obi-Wan was even arguing with him in the first place then, and Obi-Wan holds up a finger. “However, that was a rare exception, Anakin, and still we behaved poorly. Healer Che is responsible for everyone in her ward. That includes Quinlan, and Aayla, and you, and I. She has the right to know what happens around those in her care, just as your mom has the right to know what happens around you. By breaking her rules and going in without permission, we disrespected Healer Che, _and_ we worried her. We made her feel bad, do you understand?”

Anakin looks down at his toes. “nh-hn.” He mumbles, radiating anxiety and sadness. Obi-Wan glances at the Healer once more, checking on her patience levels, and then crouches down to be eye to eye with Anakin. “Hey, look at me, please?”

Anakin looks up through his lashes.

“So what should we do now?” Obi-Wan asks. “To make it better?”

Anakin stares at him, sucking on his lower lip. “ ‘pologise.” He murmurs softly.

“Yes. Anything else?”

Anakin’s face scrunches up.

“What happens when you break the rules, Ani?”

“You get in trouble.” Anakin mutters.

“Yes, and?”

“And you get punished.” Anakin fidgets. “She’s not….” He drops his voice, until it is only barely sound on air. “She’s not _mean_ , is she? I don’t wanna be hit, Obi-Wan, and I don’t want her to hit you. Gardulla used to hit amu lots, ‘cause o’ me, and I don’t-”

“Hush.” Obi-Wan places a hand on Anakin’s shoulder. “No one here is going to hit you, ever, Anakin. If _anyone_ ever, ever, treats you like Gardulla treated your mother, you _find_ me. Scream, kick, run, use the Force, I don’t care. _Find me_ , and I’ll take care of it.”

“O’kay.” Anakin mumbles, and stumbles forward to hug Obi-Wan around the neck. Obi-Wan sighs, hugs him back, and picks him up while he’s at it.

“We’re sorry to have upset you, Master Che, but I truly believed it was worth doing.” Obi-Wan says, bowing as respectfully as he can with a four year old clinging to him.

“Charming.” Healer Che replies, looking amused, if a little narrow-eyed. “Though I’m not entirely sure it constitutes an apology if the second half neutralizes the first.”

Obi-Wan flushes, and Anakin peers out from under the padawan’s chin, blonde hair framing desert-sky blue eyes.

Healer Che steels herself against that fragile look, and meet’s Obi-Wan’s gaze. “Very well. Apology accepted on behalf of you both, provided _it does not happen again_. On one condition, Padawan Kenobi.” She says.

“Yes?” Obi-Wan hunches a little, and Anakin squeezes him a little tighter.

“How did you get past the access panel?” She inquires levelly, and Obi-Wan winces in spite of himself. “Master Tholme himself attempted that and failed. _On that particular door, at least_.” She mutters the last, looking askance.

Obi-Wan doesn’t quite know how to explain his and his master’s propensity for locking each other out of and reprogramming the access to their quarters, to the shower controls, and to their personal datapads, in a passive-aggressive war that had resulted from Obi-Wan’s expert level avoidance of actually complaining against and/or contradicting his master’s decision-making skills and training regime.

Like every other aspect of their relationship, Master Naasade had turned it into a training tool, always ensuring that the code he wrote was only just above Obi-Wan’s current skill level, so that he had to learn something to get through, but never so difficult that he ended up sleeping in the hallways outside their door because he couldn’t get in.

Then, well, then Shmi had gotten involved, and trying to code against a self-taught machinist…

Things had escalated.

“I…my master showed me a trick to two….?” Obi-Wan offers.

~*~

The world swims into focus like swirling watercolors, a view that could have been the southern bluffs of Alderaan at sunset resolving, in fact, into a looming Healer Essja Chias’s blue skin, lavender hair, and golden eyes.

“Are you awake-awake this time?” Healer Chias asks, slumping back onto a stool. His hair is sticking up in places, and the smile on his face is full of immeasurable relief as he briefly turns and inspects the readouts on the machinery.

Ben grumbles low in his throat, taking a minute to clench and unclench various muscle groups as tingles spread up and down his body.  To his own immeasurable relief, the confining med-pod is gone. “How’d I do?” Ben asks, mouth dry and cottony. Healer Chias prods another water bag with a tube, and Ben suffers the indignity of it to wet his mouth and throat.

“You died!” The Healer declares brightly, brittley. “ _Four_ times.”

“Oh.” Ben replies simply.

“ _Oh_!” Chias parrots.

“We are never telling my padawan that.” Ben says, blinking as he takes stock of his body once more, reassuring himself in a moment of quiet that his heart was, in fact, still beating.

“No, we are _not_.” Healer Chias agrees, nodding excuberantly, which is perhaps a tell-tale sign that he needs a nap. And by a nap, Ben really thinks he needs twenty hours of blissful unconsciousness as a reward for his tremendous efforts to keep Ben alive.

“How did _he_ do?” Ben inquires, after a slow moment where his thoughts list aimlessly, and a tinny sound seems to persist around his ears.

“He was taken care of.” Essja reports, turning back to Ben, tapping on a datapad whatever notes he saw fit to take at the moment. “After being duly informed of the date-time and estimated duration of your operation, Master Yoda enlisted Obi-Wan as an assistant instructor for an open-invitation class on Makashi. I’m told he impressed Cin Drallig and enthralled an entire flock of new padawans.”

Ben’s lips twitch into a faint smile. “That was kind of them.”

“ _Kind_.” Healer Chias remarks flatly. “You….ah.” He pauses, and a sneaky smile overcomes his face. “You haven’t had the opportunity to witness it yet.”

“Witness what?” Ben inquires, puzzled and faintly worried.

“Your padawan’s particular brand of stubbornness in regards to, well, _you_.” Essja shakes his head fondly.

“Is it bad?” Ben asks, concerned. The last thing he wants is for both of them to be on the outs with the Jedi Order.

“It’s…” Essja frowns thoughtfully, tapping his fingers off his chin, and then shrugs, relaxing his posture as if giving in to the inevitable. “…impressive. Now! Healing Trance.” Healer Chias remarks, sliding back into gentle-faced focus. “Your tissues are responding quite well and aside from having to graft newly cloned organs to pre-existing, bio- _printed_ organs with a nonexistent patent, flush an over-abundance of sedative from your system and then re-sedate you, rewire an artificial nerve cluster that misfired very unfortunately, and the aforementioned series of heart failures, your operation went breezily. Wild success.” The healer takes a deep breath.

“Thank you.” Ben says, startling the pantoran healer into staring at him stupidly. “For everything you’ve done for me, Healer Chias.”

Chias may handle the stress well, but that manner of procedure, on a patient like Ben, _without_ bacta, was the feat of _masters_. Ni Hiella was not the most renowned healer, was not the most orthodox, and certainly didn’t have the best bedside manner, but she knew how to hone potential into everything that it could be, and though Essja’s apprenticeship may have lingered, it was only because she would not let him go as anything but the best of himself.

“It’s what I was meant to do, Master Naasade.” Essja smiles back at him, though there is a faint plum flush on his blue face. “Now, I know we discussed our post-op plan in pre-op, but humor me; Have you ever entered a Healing Trance before?”

“Not of this magnitude with an actual Healer there to guide me.” Ben remarks, letting his head sink back against his pillow, remembering his recovery from a particularly nasty infection on Tattooine, among other things. “That will be novel.”

Healer Chias gives him a nasty look. “Alright then. When you’re ready, I need you to….”


	16. Chapter 16

“I’m not sure I trust you.”

Obi-Wan snorts, sitting meditatively the grey grass, floating red river stones with precise care in rising and falling patterns. Tsui Choi, without compunction, delicately hopped from one floating stone to another, higher and higher, careful with his balance as they shifted rhythmically.

“Tsui doesn’t have a problem with it.” He says.

“Tsui’s an Aleen.” Siri retorts nervously, eyeing the floating stones suspiciously. “He weighs half as much as I do and he’s almost guaranteed to land on his feet if he falls. Humans aren’t that lucky.”

“If you don’t trust me, trust yourself.” Obi-Wan replies, peeking open one eye. “Or is Siri a scaredy-nerf?”

“I’m not _five_ , Obi-Wan.” Siri retorts, fists clenched as she stomps up to the lowest stone and stubbornly stepped up onto it, wobbling at the start. Nervously, she watches the nearest stone rise and fall, waiting for it to be just right for her to make the – admittedly small – jump over. “ _Don’t_ drop me.”

“I don’t know, Siri.” Obi-Wan says dryly. “You’re _twice_ as heavy as Tsui. I might _drop you with my mind_.”

Siri rolls her eyes and jumps, landing with her hands flung out to either side. Her chin-length hair drifts around her head, like low gravity, and she flashes a grin in spite of herself, at least until the stone’s she’s on starts rising, and she wobbles again.

“I can levitate objects just fine, though I struggle with anything less than solid, but how are you controlling so many moving parts?” Siri asks. “I’d mess up.”

“Don’t think about big stones and moving people.” Obi-Wan replies. “Think about grains of sand. That’s all it is. Just…grains of sand, and a rhythm.”

“Your sand exercise?” Siri takes a breath, and jumps, only to flinch when Tsui leaps for a stone right next to that one. She windmills, and catches herself with the Force, looking a little put out as she stabilizes. Tsui grins cheekily at her, earning a sharp and competitive frown. “You got all this from that? Huh.”

“What?” Obi-Wan asks.

“Well, I just thought your sand exercise was…” Siri trails off as all the stones stop moving, Obi-Wan opening his eyes to look at her. “Never mind!” She calls, higher in the air than she’d like to be.

“ _What_?” Obi-Wan repeats, irritated.

“Oh, C’mon, Obi, you know it was an impossible task.” Siri huffs. “Keeping track of possibly tens of thousands of grains of sand? It was a pointless endeavor. I thought it was a patience test, or a lesson in humility. I didn’t think it was actually _useful_. My master’s never had me do _anything_ like that, and she looked baffled when I told her about it.”

“Why didn’t you _tell_ me that?” Obi-Wan protests.

“Because I didn’t want to make you feel stupid!” Siri says hotly, crossing her arms.

“Well it’s _not_ pointless.” Obi-Wan snaps.

“I can see that now!” Siri snaps back. “Which is why I didn’t want to bring it up!”

“Fine!”

“Okay!” She growls, and Tsui rolls his eyes. “What?” Siri snaps at him. He gives her a very patient look, and then shrugs as Obi-Wan settles himself once more, still looking faintly irritated, and takes back up his task.

The stones rise and fall, and the padawans jump.

“What are you guys doing?”

“Bant!” Obi-Wan’s eyes spring back open, face lighting up, and all the stones – heavy, _occupied_ stones, falter in the air.

“Obi-Wan!!!” Three voices cry out, and he jerks his hands up in a universal _halt_ , looking sheepish. Siri, collapsed to her knees on her stone, glares daggers at him, and Tsui hops down three stones in quick succession and lands neatly on the ground.

“I thought you and Master Tahl were stationed on Ossus?” Obi-Wan asks, as he carefully lowers the rocks, and therefor Siri Tachi, back to the ground, replacing them as they were when he came to this garden.

“Oh, we were, and we’re going back.” Bant replies, wading through the small stream that cuts through this garden. “But a series of storms moved in and everyone had to evacuate. The ruins aren’t very stable – or habitable, for that matter. We have to wait for the season to pass, and there was a shipment of artifacts coming back to the Temple, so we hitched a ride. Honestly, some of the things we’ve uncovered, Obi! I had my hands on a crate – an entire crate! – of genuine Adegan crystals.”

“That’s amazing, Bant.” Obi-Wan grins, her delight infectious, and hugs the beaming Mon Calamar girl. She squeezes him back, and his ribs pop.

“Bant- Bant – human!” Obi-Wan wheezes.

“Oh, sorry!” She squeaks, smiling. Siri presses in for a half hug, and Tsui bows respectfully, their acquaintance newer than the rest, and Tsui more formal in general. “Oh, Obi, I heard that your master was injured! Is he alright?”

Immediately, the joyous mood dims, and Bant wilts apologetically in turn, more attuned to the emotional currents than most Jedi.

“He’s fine.” Obi-Wan smiles weakly. “He just underwent his transplant surgery, and it went well. So, he’s in a Healing Trance for now.”

“Transplant surgery! What happened?” Bant asks, appalled.

“It’s…the reconciliation council has yet to publish a record on the incident, so we aren’t really supposed to talk about it, Bant.” Obi-Wan replies.

“Oh.” Bant blinks her big eyes. “Well, may the Force be with him and his recovery be speedy! How are you?”

“Obi-Wan?” Siri snorts. “Oh, Bant, haven’t you heard? Obi-Wan’s the next saber master.”

“What?”

“Siri!” Obi-Wan blushes, and Tsui nods in total agreement with the blonde-haired padawan.

“Our little red-headed friend has been holding out on us, Bant.” Siri declares, looping her arm into the older girls. “C’mon, we’ll make him spar someone for you.”

“ _Siri_!”

~*~

Quinlan looks up hopefully when the door opens, eagerly expecting Obi-Wan’s visit and forcibly stricken when it is not his young friend who enters the room, but Master Windu.

“M-M-Master Mace.” Quinan stutters over the correct form of address, different memories of different people all clamoring to voice themselves through him.

 _I am Padawan Quinlan Vos, I am sixteen, and that is Master Windu, of the High Council._ He digs the mantra into his mind, grounding himself in the proper perspective. The flashes behind his eyes fade some, and among the overlapping personalities, the one he’s most sure is his rises to the top.

 _And I am never, ever, touching a kyber crystal again_.

“Padawan Vos.” The councilor nods his greeting, looking reserved, but somewhat less menacing than padawans usually found him to be.

Quinlan waits, remembering blaster-fire of battle’s he’s never been in, remembering holo-calls at ungodly hours, remembering listening to the man weep for his fallen padawan through a narrow sheet of durasteel paneling, and trying not to remember any of it because it wasn’t him. It wasn’t either of them.

None of that was real, here. It was just…a remembrance.

Quinlan tells himself that, and tells himself that, and it still hurts so damn much.

Quinlan’s fingers twist into the sheets on his bio-bed, and he breathes in deep, focusing on grounding himself, and he can remember how to ground himself in the middle of a horrific thrice-damned battlefield, so _why can’t he do it here_?

_Why do you have to?_

_Why not just let it out._

_Let it free. Let them feel what you feel. Let them suffer as you suffer._

_It’ll feel good._

_It’ll feel so good_ ….

Quinlan shudders against the whispers, against the cool, cloying darkness and all the promises it offers, and bites his tongue till he tastes blood, wanting to scream, wanting to give in, and outside of all that, outside the dangerous mess in his own head –

He and Mace Windu just stare at each other, uncomfortably, in nervous expectation.

“Padawan Vos.” Master Winud repeats, and Quinlan grits his teeth, feeling the chills ripple across his skin, anger roiling inside like a snake trapped in a basket, seething, waiting to strike. It spools around him in slick coils, and Quinlan lets it, watching the Master struggle with his very presence.

He wants to lash out. He knows he shouldn’t. But he _wants_ to.

He knows he shouldn’t.

But it’s harder and harder to understand _why_.

Not as hard as it was at first, holding the blade and feeling – feeling – _fire, licking at his boots, cold, seeping into his heart, feeling heartbreak-love-rage-guilt-grief-madness-how-could-they-demand-this-of-me-too-haven’t-I-given-enough_ - _he’s-my_ -

But harder some days than others.

“If you could…”Master Windu starts slowly, stern and unreadable and Quinlan can sense the weakness in him all the same, or the darkness could, and the darkness whispered it in his ear. “Tell me, anything…we should know, about.” The Master pauses, struggling with himself, with his role, wih his purpose, with his honor, and Quinlan can feel a sneer take his face, because Master Windu shouldn’t be here, asking anything, and they both know it. “About the memories you found. Just…something, anything you think we could…use. That we… _need_ to know.”

Quinlan feels…betrayed, maybe. Disappointed.

Quin, Quin scoffs.

Ventress laughs.

General Skywalker snorts _how about everything_?

Ahsoka Tano bites her lip, feeling sad.

Maul sneers, all broken teeth.

And Ben, Ben is quiet; a thousand screaming condemnations and all of them meaningless.

“It never mattered.” Quinlan says softly. “What he told you.”

The master frowns, shifting hesitantly for all that his intense stare never flickers.

Quinlan’s lips twists – he’s not sure if it’s wry or in disgust or pity or a grimace.

“You never listened.”

 _There_ , Quinlan thinks. _That’s what you should know about what I remember_.

It feels good. Maybe not as good as what the dark thrumming through his veins promises, pleased and purring at the flash of pain on the other man’s face, but it’s _his_ , and not anybody elses, and that’s something.


	17. Chapter 17

The marks on the walls, and the table, and the floor stand out as slightly brighter, newer, smoother, than the original stone. Not as marring as the blackened strikes he recalls, but still too noticeable.

The service droids cleaned up the blood, and the fallen leaves he’d missed, but untended, some of the remaining vines, cut from the root of the plant, had withered and died, and Shmi helps him with the sickly task of clearing them out. The bare patches they leave in the detailed curling pattern make his stomach churn, and a lump form in his throat, because it makes his home feel wrong.

“Obi-Wan?”

They’d left the entrance open, to let the _light-calm_ energy of the temple pervade inside and wisp away the last vestiges of darkness, and Siri Tachi leans in, in yet another style of bronze and grey tunics that still don’t quite suit her, making her already pale hair and eyes seem washed out. Alas, they were her master’s colors, and she was determined to keep them.

“Yes?” Obi-Wan asks, while Shmi pauses, where she had been straightening the pillows Anakin had collected for the couch.

“Can you come with me?” Siri asks. “Someone’s asked for you at the Senate Dome.”

“Me?” Obi-Wan lifts a brow, confused.

“Yes, you.” Siri rolls her eyes. “I’ve been sent to collect you, so, if you could, you know, _come with me_.”

Obi-Wan gives her a short, irritated look, and wonders why they are friends at all given that they argue all the time.

“Ah…okay.” Obi-Wan agrees, still confused. He looks to Shmi, who looks utterly nonplussed, and gestures for him to go ahead and go. Truth be told, there wasn’t much else to do to salvage his home from the memory of what happened here, and Shmi did have a life and plenty of responsibilities that didn’t include minding him or his somewhat turbulent emotions.

“Thank you.” Siri mutters, grabbing his hand once he’s within reach and dragging him out the door and down the corridor. He’s taller than her by at least three inches, but Siri has the same charging stride as her master, and the height difference doesn’t seem to matter at all.

“Siri. Siri.” Obi-Wan complains. “ _Siri_.”

“ _Obi-Wan Kenobi_.” She complains back.

Obi-Wan sighs, and gives in, ears reddening as they earn a few bemused looks from Temple Guardians on their way out. They climb into an air-cab with a diplomatic holo-band and the vehical lurches up as Obi-Wan is still closing the door, sending him almost toppling over his friends lap. She shoves him back with a huff, nervously straightening her robes.

Obi-Wan settles himself and eyes her, sitting stiffly and taking deep calming breathes.

“Siri, are you okay?” He asks, thinking it out of character.

“Yes.” She hisses. Obi-Wan scowls at her attitude, and leans back against his seat.

“It’s being nice, isn’t it.” Obi-Wan states, tapping a thoughtful finger off his chin. She glares at him. “You’re having trouble because you’re used to arguing, and you’re not allowed to do that when you’re in the Senate, playing diplomat.”

“I…might be.” Siri mutters. “So what?”

Obi-Wan feels his lips pull up a little. “Nothing. Just an observation.”

“ _Obi_ -Wan.” She says warningly, both of them sliding a little as the cab changes traffic lanes.

“You don’t have to pretend to be someone else just because you’re trying to learn something new.” Obi-Wan says.

“I’m not!”

“Siri.” Obi-Wan smiles. “We _all_ do it.”

She deflates a little, kicking her feet mulishly. “Really?”

“Really.” Obi-Wan nods, remembering those first few months as a padawan, constantly terrified that his master would realize he made a mistake. Bant had confided in him that she had felt exactly the same way, and so had Essja. Quinlan denied it entirely, but then, Quinlan was Quinlan.

“I just don’t want to disappoint my master.” Siri blurts out. “I’m not – I’m not good at this.”

“That’s why we’re learners.” Obi-Wan points out. “Because we’re _not_ good at this. So don’t worry about it.”

“But I _am_ worried about it!” Siri snaps.

“Well…”Obi-Wan frowns, thinking. “Think of it this way; you’re hardly the most difficult challenge your master has ever faced.”

Siri tips her head, brows pulling together for a minute. “I hope.” She mutters.

Obi-Wan laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “So do I.”

“Hey Obi-Wan?” She says, as the air-cab lurches on the brakes.

“Hm?”

“Thanks.”

~*~

“Dai Khagrah!”

Obi-Wan lurches on the threshold at the loud, enthusiastic greeting, and glances up at Knight Gallia. The tholotian Knight merely lifts an amused brow, and abandons him to return to her duties; Namely, to go rescue Siri from conversation with an increasingly sweaty sullustan.

Obi-Wan steps into the lounge, one of easily a thousand or so smaller meeting places within the Senate, to find himself facing both _Khagan’s_ of Kalee, the Kalee Ambassador, the Corellian Senator, a Correlian envoy wearing a Kaleesh head-scarf, and someone who looks only ten credits too legitimate to be a pirate.

“Good afternoon-“Obi-Wan greets, only to be swept upon by _Khagan_ Jai Sheelal, who places his left hand on Obi-Wan’s left shoulder and tips his head.

“It is good to see you well, Dai Khagrah.” Jai Sheelal tells him, in his grating, genteel voice.

Obi-Wan, who senses tradition in the physical manner of the greeting, would reciprocate, if Jai Sheelal were perhaps half a meter shorter. “And the same to you, _Khagan_ Jai Sheelal. Um…what did you call me?” Obi-Wan inquires politely.

Lij Kummar, leaning back into the couch with a shaman settled on a stool beside her, laughs. “Do not be so formal, little one.” She says, her grating voice almost a purr. “You are ‘One Who Leads the Sun’. This we call you for you have brought hope to our people.”

Obi-Wan blinks, and then feels a blush turn his face red. “Oh.”

“And a negotiator.” Jai Sheelal adds, in a cough-like statement, and physically draws Obi-Wan into the lounge to join their less than sanguine circle. “You will assist us.”

Obi-Wan swallows, looking around at the expectant, and in some cases, confused, faces.

“When you mentioned a Jedi mediator, I expected…someone older.” The Correlian Senator comments…almost diplomatically, eyeing Obi-Wan’s soft face and padawan braid with dark, cynical eyes that match his dark hair.

Behind her mask, Lij Kummar makes an odd clicking sound high in the back of her throat. It does not sound pleased. Ambassador San Luurur intercedes. “Senator Bel Ilblis, Jedi Kenobi negotiated the great bloodless victory of our people, as his master negotiated the safe relocation of yours.” The former shamans voice, like all the Kaleesh, is grating, but San Luruur speaks rather softly for her kind, and in very good Basic. “Who better to negotiate between us now?”

“The master of the student, perhaps?” The Senator replies readily, and Obi-Wan’s flush turns to a less pleased sort.

“My master is unavailable.” Obi-Wan says crisply. “Though if I am unsuitable, I apologize to have…wasted your time, Senator.”

Senator Garm Bel Iblis pauses, brown eyes truly taking in the padawan for the first time, and a small light of respect enters the Corellian’s gaze as he acknowledges the slight he was just paid back.

“Not at all.” He replies, lips twitching, and gestures for Obi-Wan to take a seat. He moves to do so, and is abruptly redirected by Jai Sheelal until he is occupying the space between the two _Khagan’s_ on the couch. Even seated, the two kaleesh warriors loom over him, though the way Lij Kummar has lounged against the end of the couch makes it less obvious, her mask and beaded green headscarves on level with his own face, which means he can see the amusement dancing in her gaze as she narrows her eyes at Jai Sheelal just past his ear.

Jai Sheelal chuffs slightly, and Obi-Wan decides it may be more prudent to ignore their tete-a-tete for now. “What is it you’re trying to negotiate?” Obi-Wan inquires, bracing his arms on his legs and leaning forward, because the couch is too large for him to lean back into it as the taller kaleesh do and because if he shifts to either side, he’ll brush up against one _khagan_ or the other, which he finds awkward for all that they do not.

“Corellia wants Kalee to back out of their deal with the Trade Clans in favor of Corellian space freighters, on account of their relocated farmers.” The woman who was not-quite-a-pirate says tersely, arms crossed and looking displeased. Amber-skinned and hair drawn up in cords, she had a proud, square jaw, and a black visor that at casual inspection disguised the fact that she was a miralukan.

“It’s only logical that corellian freighters transport corellian goods.” The man in the blue kaleesh head-scarf retorts. “Better we stick with our own. No middle man required.”

“Ambassador San Luurur says it is not condoned that we have them fight for the right.” Lij Kummar rasps quietly. “Which I find a pity.”

Obi-Wan glances at her, both fond and exasperated, and shares a sympathetic looks with said Ambassador.

“We had a deal!” The Trader snaps. “Just because your lot came in droves-“

“Stop.” Obi-Wan says firmly, at the rising voices and the splitting, sparking _anger-frustration_ they’re casting in the Force. “Both of you.” He adds, when the corellian farmer looks ready to take advantage of the pause.

Obi-Wan looks to Senator Bel Iblis.

“Corellians are loyal. We can be insular.” The senator says. “But the argument truly is that simple. Corellian farmed goods, going to the Corellian system, should be handled by Corellian transports.”

The Trader snarls quietly, growling in her throat, which is an impressive feat for a miraluken.

Obi-Wan looks between them, and turns to Ambassador San Luurur. “What does Kalee have to say in the matter?” He asks. “They are the ones who made the trade agreement with the Clans.”

“Kalee honors its word.” San Luurur replies, unreadable behind her own mask, detailed with fronds and less unsettling than the more skull-like mask worn by Jai Sheelal. “But the arrangement with the Trade Clans came before we became involved with Corellia. It includes nothing of the agricultural boom.”

Obi-Wan nods, understanding that Kalee thus has no favor either way. They simply want what will turn out best for Kalee.

And trust Obi-Wan to ensure that for them.

“Your agreement with Corellia…”Obi-Wan says, thinking out loud. “You took in twenty-thousand refugees in exchange for their assistance in retrofitting and training your newly aquired fleet, right?”

“Correct.” San Luurur dips her head, yellow scarves swaying beneath her short tusks.

“Did you deed them the land they resettled on?” Obi-Wan inquires, and Bel Iblis’s thick brows go up, one fist tightening as he catches on to the padawans train of thought.

“No.” San Luurur replies thoughtfully.

“And when they were assimilated into your system, I assume they were granted citizenship? They aren’t leaving, after all.” Obi-Wan says.

“Yes, of course.” San Luurur nods. “We did not wish to deal with the senatorial offices and had little need of reimbursement for taking them in, and so it was simplest to claim them as our own and settle the matter entirely as one of immigration.”

“Then the fact of the matter is, is that it is that while the farmers are still technically Corellian citizens, presuming they haven’t lost that right, they are also Kaleesh citizens, and the goods in question are kaleesh, and if they are still being sent to Corellia, then Corellia should be paying for them. The transportation of said goods, therefor, is still under the purview of Kalee, and their pre-existing agreement with the Trade Clans means that they have favor here.” Obi-Wan says, thinking he deserves a better grade in his global economics class if he’s negotiating things like this and not screwing them up.

And he’s pretty sure he’s not screwing this up.

The Trader grins, and the Farmer looks appalled. Senator Bel Iblis nods grimly, leans back, and throws an ankle over a knee. For a Corellian, settling in means he means business, and Obi-Wan locks gazes with him and lifts a brow.

 _So do I_ , Obi-Wan thinks, ready for the challenge.


	18. Chapter 18

Adi glances mournfully out the high arched windows at the shadowing sky, speckled with endless streams of traffic, and presses the access chime for the lounge, having already sent Siri back to the temple hours ago, with her energy flagging and supper on her mind.

Adi’s stomach growls, reminding her of her own lack thereof, and she hopes that she did not treck a mile through the Senate Dome just to discover that Padawan Kenobi has already left without informing her.

The door opens in a soundless glide, and Adi steps inside, relieved to find the bright presences telling her it was still occupied.

“Padawan Kenobi, how are you….”Adi trails off, staring at the tableau before her. “ faring.”

Padawan Kenobi was seated cross-legged on the floor, datapads and sheets of flimsiplast laid in neat, numerous stacks around him, growing more chaotic and haphazard as they neared the other beings present, who did not have the padawan’s sense of orderliness. The male Khagan was crouched next to the boy, glowering at a glowing screen, while the female Khagan was laid leisurely across the couch behind them, her head resting in her attendant’s lap, though her eyes were vibrant with rapt attention. Judging by her irregular presence in the Force, Adi would guess that the reptilian female was gravid.

A Trade Clan captain was kneeling amidst the drifts of flimsiplast, Senator Bel Iblis was on the edge of his chair, knuckles to his mouth as he focused on the padawan, though his gaze jumped to her, and the Kaleesh-Corellian spokesperson she had briefly met this morning was lying on his back on the floor, feet propped on the low table, holding a datapad above his face and had been mid-swear when Adi interrupted.

“Master Gallia.” Senator Bel Iblis looked awfully relieved to see her, which was suspiciously unusual from the typically gruff representative. “This _menace_ -“

Adi braces herself, her hair pods tensing into curves.

“- has somehow arbitrated a bilateral trade and immigration agreement between the Corellian System and the System of Kalee, whittled variable taxes down to the increment, successfully argued for the benefit of third-party neutrality _and_ the extra-republic marketability in utilizing the Trade Clans, and is now attempting to convince me to kick the Trade Federation out of the Corellian Run Hyperlane.” The Senator growls, looking peeved and incredulous. “And I think he’s _succeeding_.”

_I thought he was being invited to a social event._ Adi thinks, looking blankly back at the senator. _I left him alone for less than a day._ Her gaze shifts to the boy, who is apparently shredding through bureaucratic legalese and supply-demand conversions with a grin on his youthful, charming face.

“You….the Trade…”Adi closes her mouth, taking a soothing breath through her nose, and grounds herself in the Force. “Why?” She addresses Padawan Kenobi directly.

The red-headed boy jerks his attention to her, apparently not even having noticed her entrance, which makes her want shake her head in exasperation.

“Well, they have an unfair monopoly of the Republic Trade System.” Obi-Wan says, green-blue eyes unusually steely, which is the fair, neutral answer. “But they also once argued for killing my master and attempted to coerce the Jedi into quelling a rightful interspecies slave revolution in order to protect their profitable interests in that system, regardless of the crimes against sentience being committed.” He shrugs. “So, you understand, Master Gallia, that I _really dislike_ them.” He glances at his present company. “And it’s economically beneficial to the three parties represented here.” He adds, and then brightens, turning back to her. “Actually, Master Gallia, it’s fascinating how compatible the needs and excesses are between these two particular systems, and-“

Adi blinks slowly, nods in agreement, and sighs lightly, holding up a hand, to cut him off. His mouth clicks shut sheepishly. “Very well.” She turns to the Kaleesh Ambassador. “Will you be keeping him? If he’s to stay any later he’ll need lodging and a meal provision if he hasn’t had supper already.”

“I’ll arrange it.” Senator Beli Iblis speaks up, and Adi offers the man a raised brow. The Corellian looks back at her with a cunning gleam in his eye, and then shrugs, breaking eye contact. “He’s _the_ most interesting Jedi I’ve ever had the pleasure of dealing with.”

Obi-Wan whips a dirty look at the man. “Flattering, but _rude_.” The padawan says flatly.

The senator smirks.

 Adi closes her eyes, nods again, and leaves them to their lively enterprise, hoping that the galaxy will not have been upheaved too drastically by the time she returns in the morning.

_I am beginning to think,_ Adi sighs to herself _, that that padawan and his master_ deserve _each other._

~*~

Hot, bitter, and leaving a filmy aftertaste. Senator Bel Iblis had had the nerve to look cheerful while gulping it down, but Obi-Wan found unadulterated caff to be fairly revolting.

He drank it anyways, fairly certain that the post-midnight delivery of sour rice and pickled vegetables, and the two-and-three-quarters of an hour long nap against the base of the couch would not, in Master Gallia’s mind, qualify as the proper lodging and meal provision Senator Iblis had promised to take care of. He’d woken up with the lines of a datapad imprinted on his face and Lij Kummar’s shawl draped over him, to the smell of a droid arriving with breakfast at the first glimpse of dawn.

However, he couldn’t help the flush of exhilaration from the success of the arrangement all the parties had agreed upon, shockingly cooperative when given a petty and vindictive objective such as wounding the great beast that was the Trade Federation.

Corellia and Kalee really were well-suited for one another. Kalee had an excess of raw resources and unattended industry, Corellia had a surplus of population, an extremely competitive labor market, and a high agricultural demand. The Trade Clans, in addition to providing a neutral go-between to cut back of future favoritism and market bias, had also introduced the possibilities of expanding both systems exportability to extra-republic markets, which the Trade Federation _could_ also do – but the outrageous taxes they imposed on such transactions made it too often unworthwhile.

With a bounce in his step and a silly grin on his face, Obi-Wan turns the corner, grimacing down another gulp of caff, and weaves his way through a menagerie of protocol droids, only to trip and smack right into the voluminously robed pair of senators behind them.

“Sorry!” Obi-Wan yelps, as his thermos, their datapads, his lightsaber, two droids, and the individual he had knocked into all hits the ground.

“No, no, dear boy, clumsy me!” The man tuts, picking himself up with a rueful, cheery smile. “Hardly the first time I’ve stumbled over a young attendant –oh!” Blue eyes widen, brows rising. “You’re a _jedi_.” He remarks, surprised, and pauses, glancing down to his side. “Then this must be yours.” He picks up Obi-Wan’s lightsaber with curious fingers, handing it to him, and Obi-Wan clips it to his belt.

“Thank you, yes, I’m so sorry, Senator.” Obi-Wan can feel his face burning as he helps the man to his feet, watching as he straightens his plum-purple robes with little fuss, careful fingers running along flower-stitched seams and smoothing down the lines. Obi-Wan scoops the datapads from the floor and tucks his thermos – thankfully spill-proof – under his arm as he hands them back with an apologetic bow.

“Nothing too dire?” The Senator remarks, and Obi-Wan tilts his head, confused. The senator chuckles. “That had you heading off so quickly.” He adds, a kind glimmer in his eyes.

“Oh, n-not really, sir.” Obi-Wan says. “I have to report for Master Gallia, as I was here all night and…and I really probably should actually be going.” Obi-Wan realizes, with a small prickle of dread. Other masters were far less generous in the face of mistakes than Obi-Wan’s master was, and Adi Gallia was not likely one to let tardiness go unacknowledged.

“Of course, of course.” The senator nods, amused. “Take care now.”

“Yes sir.” Obi-Wan bows again, and heads off with a little less boldness.

~*~

“No.” Tsui says, staring evenly back at Obi-Wan.

“What?” Obi-Wan says grouchily, saber in hand.

“Put that away.” Tsui demands, pointing at Obi-Wan’s lightsaber. “It’s not fair that yours hurts more when we get stung.”

The Aleen boy did have a point. Obi-Wan sighs, his group of friends watching expectantly as he sets his lightsaber on the overtunic he’d peeled off, and fetches a training saber, eyeing him as if he might somehow dupe them with a bait-and-switch, like the hilt wouldn’t make it blatantly obvious.

“Go easy on me.” Tsui reminds him.

“Does he even know how to do that?” Siri asks pointedly, and Obi-Wan shoots her a glare. She glares back. “I’m serious. Do you even know how to do that? I’ve seen you spar, Obi. You’re not overly aggressive, but you’re definitely not on the same level we are.”

“That’s a good point.” Bant comments thoughtfully. “You’ve never actually trained with your own peers before.”

“That’s because my master is sneaky and conniving.” Obi-Wan rolls his eyes. “But I do know how _not_ to hurt someone. We’ll take it slow, and I’ll let Tsui set the pace.”

“Maybe I should go first.” Siri says doubtfully. “Or Bant – she’s had the most saber-practice. Not counting Obi-Wan.” She adds, sticking her tongue out at him. “Obi-Wan deviates from the norm. He’s bad for empirical observation.”

“You’re taking statistic _again_ , Siri?” Obi-Wan asks, lifting a brow.

“Shut up.” She flushes. “Numbers are more difficult for me, and Master Unsaan’s voice just puts me to sleep!”

 “You’re worrying about this way too much.” Obi-Wan tells the girls plainly. “I think you forget that Tsui is Master _Yaddle’s_ padawan.”

“So?”

Obi-Wan shares a look with the serene, blue-skinned Aleen, who holds his stare and blinks innocently back at him.

Yeah, Obi-Wan is _not_ falling for that one.


	19. Chapter 19

Ben can feel the gentle coaxing prod against his mind, lapping at the edges of his senses like a gentle tide slowly creeping up on the shore, waking him with careful deliberation. The feel of the presence worries him, because it doesn’t feel like Anakin or Ahsoka, and if they aren’t here, then what happened while he was-

“Master Naasade, can you hear me yet?” Healer Chias asks softly. “Master Naasade?”

Right. Not on a Star Cruiser, not in the care of Sunshine from the 212th, not in the middle of the war and – yep, no bacta. On the one hand, that means there is no cloying reek in his sinuses, but on the other, his body aches deeply, in the strange and not-quite-accurate way that internal organs do.

Ben groans unintelligibly, and starts cooperating with the Healer’s attempts to pull him from the caccoon of a Healing Trance, sensation and awareness slowly washing back in.

“He awake?” Master Windu asks, and Ben finds opening his eyes easier than he has in weeks, to find the harun kal frowning in the corner of the room, arms crossed, one hand folded over a datapad.

“I am, thank you.” Ben mutters, and moves to push himself up, as he dislikes being prone while conversing with such company. Muscles spasm and twinge, and a wave of nausea builds and fades, but he manages to sit completely up with some help from Healer Essja.

Mace grunts, and studies him while Healer Chias puts Ben through his checks and tests and Ben scratches at his unkempt, overgrown beard in dismay.

“No mishaps during my trance?” Ben asks, gladly accepting an offered cup of lukewarm water to sooth his throat.

“For once, your body cooperated entirely.” Healer Chias reports happily, looking far more at ease than he had when last Ben saw him.

He was also, at last, missing his padawan braid, his Knighthood finally formalized.

“Congratulations.” Ben remarks kindly.

“Thank you.” Essja smiles, one hand reflexively reaching for the ear where the braid had rested for so long.

“Does he pass?” Mace inquires, finally. Healer Chias takes a patient breath, turns and nods.

“He does, Master Windu.” Chias reports snippily. “Thank you for your patience.”

Mace’s frown deepens, and the Healer, taking the cup back from Ben, whose hand was shaking a little, gives them both a measured look and leaves the room.

“What can I do for you, Master Windu?” Ben inquires, resigned.

“Your padawan is a passive-aggressive menace.” Mac reports, and Ben can’t help his lips twitching into a smirk.

“You don’t say?” Ben inquires, lifting a brow.

Mace snorts and uncrosses his arms, lifting the datapad so he can read it off.

“Week twenty, day four; I read poetry. I attended breakfast with my master. We discussed this morning’s poem. I attended class. Today’s training began with a quick re-run of my last physical lesson in Makashi, and then we moved on to Soresu for the remainder of the day. My master and I attended dinner. I vaguely remember making it to my bed. End report.” Mace intones, completely deadpan, and then glowers at Ben. “That little shit wrote an entry for every single day of his apprenticeship in the exact same manner. And I had to read _all_ of it.”

“What did you do?” Ben asks, knowing his padawan.

“We had posed the question of what his training consisted of.” Mace admits grudgingly. “So now I have, in terse prose, detailed accounts of how one plays various hands of sabaac, endless repetitions wherein he counts grains of sand, Jango Fett’s swearing, some surprisingly insightful dissections on various knights saber-play, and word for word instructions on your Force Techniques instructions, which apparently consist mostly of sarcasm and rhetorical questions.”

“Well, I’d say he took offense to your asking.” Ben replies, just managing to keep his voice even against the snicker he wanted to let out.

“I wasn’t the one who asked.” Mace complains. “I’m not even _on_ the reconciliation council.”

“Well, he clearly decided that you deserved to share in his passive-aggressive retribution.” Ben says. “Be glad he can’t access the environmental controls for your quarters.”

Mace grunts acknowledgement of that and sets the datapad aside, sobering more in the next minute of quiet, which Ben took to mean he was preparing himself for being the bearer of unwelcome news.

“Let me have it.” Ben finally sighs, running a hand through his lank hair and eagerly anticipating his next shower, and a trim. “You don’t like me well enough to visit me upon waking just to socialize. I’m assuming the reconciliation council has decided my fate?”

A flash of recrimination passes over the other mans gaze, and Windu nods, arms crossing again.

“Officially,” Mace reports, voice stern and neutral. “You are on medical leave.”

Ben nods, having already assumed so, given the obvious.

“You are also under three months of mandatory suspension from your duties. You may not be assigned missions, you may not teach classes, and your padawan will be removed from your care.”

Mace takes a breath, eyeing him, and Ben waits calmly.

“You are assigned mandatory counseling with a Soul Healer. You will be required to wear a medical tag at all times, you will not be allowed to carry a lightsaber - or any weapon, for that matter - and you will be required to wear a Force Inhibitor. Your movement within the Temple is restricted pending your psychological evaluation and pending approval from your Soul Healer.”

Again, Mace pauses, waiting and looking perturbed, and Ben gestures for him to continue. Frowning distrustfully, the councilor does.

“Three months is the mandatory _minimum_. Your time may be extended pending recommendation from your Healers or in response to any…setbacks in your behavior. You will be required to submit a daily log to the reconciliation council. You are to adhere to your therapy schedules, you are to adhere to all your medical restrictions and recommendations, and you are to adhere to all further rules and restrictions without deviation.” Mace finishes.

“Will I be able to visit the crèche still? Once I’m physically cleared to move that far?” Ben inquires politely.

Mace winces slightly. “Only with your Soul Healer’s strict approval, and with the approval of any crèchemaster whose clan you wish to interact with. You are officially on warning-watch for potentially harmful behavior as a Traumatic Stress Response case, and Temple has been made aware.”

Ben presses his lips together, avoiding grinding his teeth. It isn’t the first time he’s been labeled TSR, but treatment tended to fall to the wayside in the face of the unrelenting demand of the battlefront. He had been too critical to the war effort to keep off the front lines so long as he could still differentiate between his allies and his enemies.

“Have I been assigned a Soul Healer yet?” Ben inquires calmly. “If possible, I’d like to participate in therapy alongside Quinlan Vos.”

He was more concerned for the padawan’s case than his own, after all, and he had a feeling that the Temple would need help in dealing with it with any measure of success.

“Candidates are still being evaluated given the…tricky nature of your situation. I’ll pass along your request.” Mace replies uncomfortably. Ben nods absently, smoothing down the sheets on his bed.

“And will I be allowed to see my padawan before that particular separation takes place?” He asks.

“He’ll be visiting shortly.” The harun kal replies, a touch of relief in his voice for having a positive answer for once. “Now that you are in recovery, he and Padawan Unduli are being redeployed to Moia to resume negotiations.”

“Thank you.” Ben says, thinking that having Obi-Wan on mission would simplify things, as opposed to him being in Temple and unable to seek out his master. “And the inhibitor?”

Mace stares at him, and Ben looks coolly back. Slowly, reluctantly, the councilor opens a drawer from the Healer’s stand, and withdraws a silver medical tag and a pouch, handing both over to Ben. Ben sighs at the TSR label on the medical tag next to the yellow marker for limited mobility and the orange design for restricted diet. He affixes the chain around his wrist deftly and then dumps the pouch over in his lap. The Force Inhibitor will not cut him off completely, he’ll still be able to feel the Force, and lean into it, but he shouldn’t be able to do anything such as what he did to Pong Krell while wearing it, which was rather the point.

It bears an unfortunate resemblance to a shackle, made of an inflexible material with a hinge on one side and a power lock on the other, so it can only be removed by authorized persons. It’s a neutral medical-blue and white in color, but he still feels sickly just looking at it, let alone putting it on, he senses immediately dulled. He has to close his eyes briefly, struggling to ground himself, and takes a minute to adjust.

Mace is still staring at him when he opens them, his face twisted with suspicious disbelief. “What gives, Naasade?” He demands. “You’re the most contrary bastard I’ve ever met and not once have you ever blatantly accepted any decision made by the council without making a point of it.”

Ben feels a brow twitch. “I _fucked up_ , Master Windu.” Ben says primly, cross at the assumption that he argues for arguments sake. That he doesn’t have his reasons for _making a point_ , as Mace called it. “What did you expect me to do with your decision? Wail about it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELP ME OUT: so the Remembrance arc gained a life of its own and is a lot longer than i origionally intended, so, i need your opinion: cut here and do Remembrance: Part III as its own fic, or keep going and just let this one be super long? (because yes, part three will be....involved. I feel like there is lots of stuff left for me to address with this arc, before i can get to my next arc in the plot, so...)
> 
> ADD NOTE: if i make part 3 it own fic, it'll probably have more content than if i tack it onto this one, because i really am trying to keep moving along, but also individual stories need to be more flushed out and i'm working on that as a writer.
> 
> FINAL NOTE: Part III it is! Thank you guys so much!


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